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Socialism is immoralProtest the quota systemEnd entitlement benefits for freeloaders Support the death penalty for terrorists and anti-nationals |
| FAKE STINGS AND SECULAR GAMES: | |
| The deep rooted conspiracy to subvert the political process [link] |
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Friday, July 31, 2009 |
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Queen eclipsed by the Other Queen | |
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posted by barbarindian at 2:38 AM Permalink
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Two dangerous ideas | |
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There are two dangerous ideas floating around and we can't seem to decide which is worse. The first relates to the massive diplomatic fiasco committed by the UPA Government. One can tell it is a big blunder from the fact that intellectuals of various hues took more than a week to cook up theories in the Government's defense. The major idea right now is that it is a display of Gandhigiri by Manmohan Singh, albeit at an international level. Unfortunately the other cheek being offered is one that belongs to a lower region of the body and Pakistanis are already seen gleefully preparing to put a Lahori chappal imprint on it. Worse, they might just give the cheek a miss and aim straight for the you know what. This theory clearly does not stand up to scrutiny, just like the absurd idea put forward by Indrani Bagchi of The Times of India about the Nuclear betrayal. That theory now stands completely demolished, with India having put its foot down emphatically against any environmental agreement. In any case, to think that Manmohan Singh can actually go ahead and attempt antics like this on his own is absurd. We believe this whole thing happened because certain levers were pulled at Washington. The second idea is that of global nuclear deterrence. A set of people seem to totally like this idea and coincidentally these were the same set of people who were the leading Nuke cheerleaders. The idea is as follows:
Okay, if this idea sounds too much like the United Nations to you, you are not alone. That was quite a successful organization, wasn't it? The big problem with global Nuclear deterrence is simply that to launch a Nuke attack takes a certain type of mindset. A single country like India can retaliate against another country, but try achieving that consensus within a dozen or so countries, especially when the member nations will consist of reputable peace loving nations of Europe. Typically you can launch a counter attack within hours. If you wait, the scene gets complicated. The leaders start getting phone calls from powerful nations with deals, sweeteners and threats. Peaceniks are out on the street, demanding that the victim nation forgive the aggressor to spare innocent bystanders. We can already read the headlines on New York Times: President of France invokes Gandhi, pleads Indians to forgive etc. Try putting that scenario to the global Nuke defense setting. Using backward induction, once India signs up for this stupid concept, it is a virtual guarantee to the loonies that there is NOT going to be a Nuclear retaliation.
posted by barbarindian at 12:11 AM Permalink
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Monday, July 27, 2009 |
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Cranes are falling | |
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It seems like the Delhi metro is falling apart at seams. Now even the rails have developed cracks, this can lead to a really serious accident. Sidharth Mishra of The Daily Pioneer elaborates on the mafia controlled construction projects in New Delhi. All this is common knowledge, people at the very highest level are on the take. However, we did not find any of this surprising at all. This is the 'shyte' Indians have been taking for more than sixty years. The surprising part is that the name of Delhi CM Sheila Dixit never even came up on the media - the whole reporting and editorializing is focused on E Shreedharan (Managing Director of Delhi Metro). Contrast this with the Gujarat hooch tragedy, they immediately reached for the CM's jugular.
posted by barbarindian at 12:17 AM Permalink
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Sunday, July 26, 2009 |
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Why blame the NYT? | |
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NEW DELHI: Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab was captured in a chilling photograph and now he has confessed his role in the Mumbai terrorist attacks, but he remains a 'gunman', rather than a 'terrorist', for the New York Times and other leading American newspapers. And with a reason. This is a strange article from TOI, the paper which does its very best to perpetuate secular myths. Our home grown intellectuals are yet to call Kasab by the 'T' word. The Arundhati Roy types have openly blamed India for 26/11. Apparently Indian security forces rape Kashmiri women which leads to illiterate runaway teens in Pakistani villages to join up certain organizations and who then invade India so they can sexually humiliate guests in Indian hotels before killing them. The American press is merely following the diktat of the current administration. If the administration is loathe to call a spade a spade, the media, having thrown its total weight behind The One can't really do otherwise. The Times of India and other secular newspapers couldn't get enough of the new savior of the new world. Developing this late allergy over semantics is hardly going to help. We recommend the TOI stop losing sleep over this and go back to their regular programming of Hindu bashing.
posted by barbarindian at 4:41 PM Permalink
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MCOCA charges dropped against Abu Salem | |
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New Delhi: A Delhi court today reserved its order on a plea by the city police seeking to drop charges under stringent MCOCA against underworld don Abu Salem on the ground that it was against the conditions for his extradition agreed to between India and Portugal. "The pending application of the Delhi police is heard. Fix the application for order on July 22," Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Pinki said after the counsel for the police and CBI wrapped up arguments.In most situations, the police seek to book a criminal under the most stringent laws possible. Only in a secular country will you see cops begging the courts to not apply existing strong provisions. As you can see, we have a pretty funny situation here. The Government (secular) claims that Portugal demanded waiving the death penalty before allowing the extradition of Abu Salem. How do we know they bargained hard enough? Were they trying prevent an Afzal like situation? There is no reason MCOCA(*) should not be applied in the case. The charges are not severe enough to warrant a death penalty. In any case the waiver could be applied using a Governor's pardon and handled politically. Applying the law would have helped the police to find other conspirators. (*) MCOCA: A stringent law against organized crime that is invoked only against Hindus.
posted by barbarindian at 9:52 AM Permalink
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Wednesday, July 22, 2009 |
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It takes a whole new level of talent ... | |
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Now, Pak details 'Indian hand' in Balochistan ... to take a favorable situation and turn it completely around. In other words to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. It is kind of hard to decide what is worse - this being by design or a result of drafting error. Meanwhile planted media reports about Manmohan Singh's waning popularity n Congress continue. As we said before, this could be just setting the stage for the grand debut. Prepare to genuflect and learn to salute in proper form.
posted by barbarindian at 11:29 PM Permalink
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Shiva idol desecrated in Mangalore | |
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 More details here.Please note that there will not be any secular outrage over this incident.
posted by barbarindian at 11:24 PM Permalink
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Saturday, July 18, 2009 |
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Sagarika Ghose can be booked under SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act | |
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RealityCheck's deconstruction of the latest blog post by Sagarika Ghose is a must read for anyone who wants to understand how media contextualizes events. Ghose has started calling her blog the "FTN blog", supposedly a postscript of the show "Face the nation" which she hosts on the CNN-IBN channel. This betrays a latent desire to have the last word, a typical trait of scions of a fascist regime who imagine themselves to be living in a democratic country. Her latest blog post starts out with an astonishing comment on our latest foreign policy disasters ("meaningless words of diplomatic gobbledygook") - more on this later, then discusses the hate speech by Rita Bahuguna Joshi only to conclude:
Unfortunately, this is not how it works. There are different legal philosophies behind acts such as the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled extent and Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 [pdf]. There are several ways of levelling the playing field. Some countries enact a generic law to prosecute all hate crimes. This is a reasonable way to do it, since who is to say hate crimes do not happen in reverse? Some recent cases (gang rape of a Hindu girl by Muslim thugs in Surat, gang rape of a Hindu student in a college in Tamil Nadu, gang rape of an MBA student by eleven Yadav boys near Delhi) could come under reverse hate crime. However, the Indian law has not yet taken this into account. A careful reading of the SC/ST prevention of atrocities act suggests that the intent was to provide a strong disincentive for crimes specifically committed against Dalits and Tribals. The law thus wants to prevent the systemic exploitation of Dalits and Tribals, when crimes against them are committed with the full knowledge of vulnerability of the victim. In reality though, like every other areas of Governance, this Act has morphed into an instrument of political vendetta. For instance, the editor of a newspaper in Andhra Pradesh was booked under the act for burning the effigy of a Dalit politician. The newspaper was reportedly critical of the Y Samuel R Reddy led Congress Government in AP. Likewise, it appears that any crime committed by a non-Dalit person against a Dalit person is automatically tried under this act. In other words, the specific provisions of law which requires a demonstration of intent or facility to commit such a crime from a position of strength is no longer required in practice. There is enough legal precedence for this. Thus Joshi will automatically be tried under the act. She must not get a pass when ordinary citizens have to face the total wrath of justice. It simply will not be fair. Additionally,
This clause clearly makes Sagarika Ghose and her channel a possible suspect under the act. - Rita Joshi made a hate speech (crime under the penal code) - the hate speech was directed at a Dalit person - Rita Joshi thus can be tried under the SC/ST atrocities act - Sagarika Ghose tried to spread propaganda (indirect financial assistance) - which makes her an accessory to the crime. Simple. Meanwhile, the Buta Singh-led Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe Commission is making some meaningless and out of context remarks.
Inasmuch as the commission has been turned into a political tool of the secular party, they have no locus standi in the matter. They simply can not arbitrarily narrow down the scope either. The commission can make recommendations to the Government. It is not up to them to hand down judgments or dictate legal terms for offences committed under the Penal Code.
posted by barbarindian at 10:44 PM Permalink
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Hail [.......] | |
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 Scary.
posted by barbarindian at 10:42 PM Permalink
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Shocking! Shopian murders "caste" related? | |
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Absolutely stunning piece of news from The Times of India: Bodies of Neelofer (22) and her sister-in-law Asiya (17) were recovered from a stream on May 30 after they disappeared from their orchards in Shopian town the previous evening, sparking off massive protest by locals who suspected the hand of security personnel in the case. This is simply astonishing. The Times of India has so far amplified the valley sentiments about the murder, without even bothering to offer alternative explanations. It is clear that the case is falling apart. As we mentioned before, this insanity is making women of Kashmir uniquely vulnerable to all sorts of abuses.
posted by barbarindian at 2:23 AM Permalink
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Singh to be dinged soon? | |
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 There is simply no reason the mouthpiece will brandish such an unfavorable piece of news so prominently. The Congress party has two pillars of faith - the family and secularism. The danger of the family brand going stale must haunt them constantly.Well the Prince is on the bench. He does not even have a ministry portfolio. The Youth Congress thing does not work very well during off season. The media has a hard time keeping him on the headlines, often having to invent context. This Times of India headline makes us believe that Singh may be given a dishonorable discharge after all. The only other alternative could be that the situation is truly damaging and as always they are preemptively shielding the family from the fallout (like they did in the aftermath of 26/11). Perhaps something is brewing.
posted by barbarindian at 2:13 AM Permalink
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Friday, July 17, 2009 |
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What's sauce for the gander | |
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 A couple of years ago, the Y Samuel R Reddy Government in Andhra Pradesh booked the staffers and editor of a daily under the SC/ST atrocities act. Their sin? They spoke out against a Dalit leader of the secular party and led a peaceful demonstration. Funny.Rita Bahuguna Joshi should have known better. Perhaps the stunning success of the secular party in making international friends (they even managed to plant anti-Mayawati stories in Newsweek) made her complacent. So she went ahead and made her little speech. Now she finds herself slapped with a charge under the SC/ST atrocities act. Not so funny. What should be the yardstick of what constitutes hate speech? Perhaps the effect of said speech on the intended audience. Varun Gandhi's so called hate speech didn't cause so much as a flutter. Not until weeks later a professionally edited CD of parts of the speech showed up mysteriously on our national channels. HATE SPEECH! In contrast, Rita Bahuguna's cringe inducing statements (NDTV video with the vital part beeped out) triggered instant revulsion and anger. Her goose got cooked, almost literally, as furious supporters of Mayawati set a portion of her house on fire. Bahuguna can not claim that she did not know what effect her speech was going to have. Her actual speech can be found here. Obvously the secular media has edited out the key part of her hate speech. Note that it is Bahuguna's remarks vs. Varun's hate speech. RealityCheck has more here. They literally threw the rulebook at Varun Gandhi. The dude will be making rounds of courts for the foreseeable future, not to mention every journalist, reporter, writer, secular etc. finding new evidence of Varun Gandhi's meanness everyday which might even include references to his body weight. Well, we just hope Joshi has fire insurance on her house.
posted by barbarindian at 12:20 AM Permalink
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Thursday, July 16, 2009 |
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Sweet surrender | |
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 Of course, we are all familiar with this photograph that symbolizes a key chapter in the history of the subcontinent.Well, history does repeat itself in funny ways. Most analysts are calling it a shameful capitulation:
posted by barbarindian at 11:14 PM Permalink
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Wednesday, July 15, 2009 |
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Where are the Nuclear cheerleaders? | |
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 When life gives you a lemon, make lemonade. After the dust settles, we suspect that is what the Indian public will have to contend with and move on.When the Nuclear deal issue came up, especially just around the time of the trust vote, all media outlets were running specials on the Nuclear deal issue. Every intellectual worth his salt had weighed in. A small sampling: Win-Win Nuclear Deal (TOI Editorial) Sagarika Ghose (Howdy Pardner) Sagarika Ghose (Red letter day) Plus non-stop TV shows, discussions, Devil's advocate interviews etc. If you have the appetite, there is always google. At the time they were quick on the draw. Each one of them discovered a new facet or "merit" in the deal, like a Mommy discovers new goodness in her baby every single day. Right now though, except for the disastrous TOI article and an ambiguous sounding column from Pratap Bhanu Mehta, intellectuals are showing amazing restraint and reluctance in discussing the deal, as blogger RealityCheck points out. Is it a case of success has many fathers, failure is an orphan? Of course, we are starting to hear the usual elitist argument - that the deal is too complex for the understanding of the aam aadmi. Actually, it will be hard to find an aam aadmi that does not understand the deal. It would take less than a minute for auto drivers, rickshaw pullers, day laborers to get to the gist of it. This deal is as old as civilization itself, it is called switcheroo or if you prefer, bait and switch. We have been dealt this hand repeatedly for more than 60 years. The nuclear deal is no different, except that it is turning out to be the mother of them all: NEW DELHI: India's endorsement of the climate declaration at the Major Economies Forum in Italy has split its top climate negotiators. In a strong dissent, one of the negotiators called Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's signing on to the statement a "body blow to everything that we (the Indian officials) have fought for".
posted by barbarindian at 11:12 PM Permalink
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The Shopian tragedy | |
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The Shopian tragedy has been on the news for a few weeks now. As if the original tragedy (dead bodies of two young women recovered from a mountain spring under mysterious circumstances) was not enough, various protests have lead to more deaths. The secular media even at a national level played along with this, without any semblance of journalistic ethics. Needless to say the separatists there tried their very best to stoke sentiments. Praveen Swami reports: For the most part, Justice Jan found, the media misrepresented forensic evidence. Media accounts insisted that both women appeared to have been badly beaten and gang raped. However, the Jan Commission states, pathologists found no evidence to support the proposition of gang rape. Moreover, only one victim's body was found to bear visible external injuries. Claims that one victim was pregnant at the time of her death, Justice Jan states, were also wrong. For some reason, discovery of dead bodies of women in Kashmir automatically leads to the conclusion of rape and murder by security forces of the "deep state", or more specifically by Hindu members of police force. It is well documented that separatists of various hues beat security forces hands down when it comes to rape and other atrocities on women, including forced marriages. The zeal of Kashmiris to jump at every incitement of separatists is making women in Kashmir uniquely vulnerable.
posted by barbarindian at 12:09 AM Permalink
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India's "Shanghai" | |
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Rain rain go away, little Abdul wants to play More here.
posted by barbarindian at 12:06 AM Permalink
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Monday, July 13, 2009 |
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The Times of India's pathetic cover up of the Nuclear Deal fiasco | |
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(Click on image for a larger version)  When even trusted cheerleaders start expressing doubts, you know the deal has gone horribly wrong. In damage control mode, The Times of India published a story titled: "India may not be hit by G-8 raising bar on nuke tech transfer". This is obviously rather juvenile. Even if one were to argue that the title does not automatically translate into "India may be hit", it shows a distinct lack of assertiveness. Of course they realized this within a few hours and fixed the title to say: "G-8 terms no bar, India can reprocess nuke fuel". Too late, the original title, although quickly pulled, already made it into news aggregation sites. Let's compare them once again: (A) India may not be hit by G-8 raising bar on nuke tech transfer (B) G-8 terms no bar, India can reprocess nuke fuel These aren't nearly the same in meaning. Heck, they ain't even close. Even ignoring the issue of certainty vs. mere speculation, one talks about "nuke tech transfer" while the other talks about "reprocessing fuel". Reprocessing fuel, was NOT the only issue here. Although the title has been massaged, the piece by Indrani Bagchi puts up feeble arguments or rather sidesteps the pertinent arguments: At this point, India is only looking to be able to reprocess foreign-origin fuel, which in principle has been granted by France and Russia in their civil nuclear agreements which are yet to be made public. Well, maybe so, but at the time when the deal was sold, it came with all sorts of promises, a cure all for electric problems for Kalawati, India's energy needs for 20 years, nuclear high tech stuff etc. sans any restrictions on our strategic program and intrusive inspections of our facilities. Now we are only looking to reprocess fuel. Sure. There are two bottomlines that have to be remembered. First, India has a huge ace -- that climate change negotiations cannot go anywhere unless India has a viable alternative to hydrocarbon use, and that is nuclear. This is an argument that will trump many others in the current race for a climate change deal. Well, Ms. Bagchi, are you telling us? Let's try again: Are you telling us?
posted by barbarindian at 10:52 PM Permalink
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Sunday, July 12, 2009 |
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Nuclear love's labor lost | |
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In India, we have a lot of intellectuals. Intellectuals figured that the nuclear deal was a smart thing to do, so we went ahead and did it. We didn't like it. We said so repeatedly: Siddharth Varadarajan reports (via Chindu) in great detail how the G8 discussions essentially killed any good part of the nuclear deal and possibly pushed us into a compliance regime. Meanwhile, the US has also started arm twisting us in other areas. It has prevented Israel from bidding on the multi-billion dollar airforce order. India is also being forced to soften its stand on the carbon emissions issue. As you can see, the secular lovin' media is maintaining a radio silence on these issues. Before you know it, the unsuspecting public will be left holding a lemon of a bill and a large invoice for carbon tax. (... to be continued)
posted by barbarindian at 11:00 PM Permalink
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End prohibition in Gujarat? | |
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The same set of people who didn't want terrorism to be politicized are now politicizing India's biggest hooch tragedy - 136 and counting. They are laying it thick and heavy on the Narendra Modi led Gujarat Government. For instance check out this TOI article (opinion piece disguised as news) and this one by the danseuse. However, we will not play politics on this great human tragedy and instead investigate and attempt to find a policy response. We will briefly mention that the prohibition in Gujarat finds its root in the legacy of Gandhian morality. There are four states currently under prohibition - Gujarat, Manipur, Mizoram and Nagaland. A google search on the history of spurious liquor related tragedies throws up some major recent incidents (numbers indicate death toll, often twice as many people fall seriously ill and even lose eyesight): March 4, 1989: Gujarat, 100 May 1998: UP, 60 August 22, 1998: Tamil Nadu, 45 February, 1999: Tamil Nadu, 15 October, 2000: Kerala, 29 [reference to 1981 (34) and 1982 (78)] February 2001: Orissa, Dozens December 2001: Tamil Nadu, 53 September 2004: West Bengal, 18 June 2005: Karnataka, 25 January 2005: Maharashtra, 81 May 2008: Karnataka, 123 December 2008: Rajasthan, 22 These are just a sampling of what one can find from a google news search on "hooch tragedy". Smaller incidents are simply too numerous to count. One is simply astounded at the scale and severity of this problem. Why didn't we hear about it before? Well, simply put, the BJP party performs a great social utility in India. Often people become aware of serious problems when they happen under BJP rule. For instance, we found out about farmer suicides under Naidu regime, we also found out about poverty, child malnutrition etc. under the BJP rule at center. But we digress. This problem is all over and shows no definitive pattern. Some random observations:
One can conclude that ending prohibition will reduce the scale of each tragedy since people will switch to either a different supplier of hooch or simply to higher priced licensed liquor temporarily. However, it is easy to see that simply ending prohibition will not eliminate the problem - the price differential between the illicit stuff and the lowest priced licensed stuff is still too high. It is clear that we are pursuing two contradictory social goals here. General alcoholism which does not have such tragic short term outcome and death and illness due to spurious liquor are simply two different sets of problems. The key to reducing hooch tragedy is to end the price differential between licensed and non-licensed stuff. Simply ending prohibition will not fix it. However, this is easier said than done since the alcohol industry is inexorably tied to sugar and apparel industry and is Governed by a myriad set of trade laws, barriers and regulations. For a glimpse of how complex the problem is, check out this article. In conclusion, we recommend ending prohibition in Gujarat, it is a first step towards data collection and further policy making. We must also remove the insane alcohol related duties and restrictive trade laws, never buy into the insanity of alternative fuel and sign anything the current American administration asks us to sign.
posted by barbarindian at 6:00 PM Permalink
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India's agricultural subsidies help feed neighboring countries | |
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So, our socialist Government massively subsidizes agriculture - in the form of fuel, fertilizer, seeds, equipment etc. Naturally this will create a distortionary price distribution in the region, which inevitably leads to smuggling. Google search India fertilizer smuggling Google search India cattle smuggling Socialism can win elections, it can get intellectuals prizes - but it can not defeat laws of economics. I saw poor people I felt sad I wrote about poor people now gimme a prize gimme gimme gimme gimme gimme gimme
posted by barbarindian at 2:40 PM Permalink
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Saturday, July 11, 2009 |
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Evenly spreading it across all classes | |
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Jawed Naqvi can be a challenging writer to read and follow, if you try to make one cohesive whole of his articles. Naqvi writes:Her aunt and cabinet minister Sheila Kaul came to Dubai for a preparatory visit. I asked her if Mrs Gandhi would meet the Indian workers who lived haplessly in remote shantytowns. She said of course Mr Gandhi would, and I wrote the story in the Gulf News. When Mrs Gandhi came visiting Dubai, the various Indian associations, all controlled by the well-heeled members of the community, blocked the meeting with poorer workers. The consul general who joined the conspiracy to prevent the prime minister from meeting the workers whose hard-earned money singularly shores up India's foreign currency reserves, has become a columnist for the rightwing religious revivalist journal – Organiser. [Removing the culpable beam in our own eyes, Dawn] This is the concluding paragraph from the article and from this you would never guess what the context was. In any case, this single paragraph contains a factually incorrect assertion and an unverifiable claim. It is true that remittances by NRIs is a significant sum, clocking almost $30 billions. But Gulf countries come second to the remittances from the US. Also, the so called hardworking and poorer workers actually contribute a small portion, the well-heeled conspirators are the big contributors. In other words, the statement makes no sense whatsoever. Had Naqvi mentioned private remittances instead of foreign currency reserves, it would make some sense. Remittances by themselves are merely a component of other items that clock up the reserves.
These are parts of the two opening paras from the article. Ignoring the incorrect example from the movie Lage Raho Munnabhai, these paragraphs would clearly indicate an elitist tone. In other words, Naqvi is being very mean to the nouveau riche, a trait not uncommon among our socialists and seculars and a paradoxical one at that. The very next paragraph will leave you grasping for breath: Caste snobbery is evident among Muslim students too, as any old student of Aligarh Muslim University familiar with the perpetual standoff between the perceptibly diffident Bihari students and the loud and pushy Pathans from the Rohilkhand region of Uttar Pradesh would testify. I am told the Biharis have become more assertive now, as have the Dalits in Delhi. This forced example shows that so far Naqvi wasn't thinking "Indians". This statement was thrown in to preserve the pretense of political correctness. In any case it is clear that Naqvi considers the "socially atavistic" traits among Muslims a lesser problem than it is among the Hindus. As we go further along, we finally find out the context of the article - the recent attacks on Indian students in Australia. Then Naqvi explains at length the two classes of Indians in Australia (old vs. new money) etc.: "The attacks on Indian students in Australia over the past two months have split the Indian community in the country,' said The Hindu. 'Broadly, the divide is between the entrenched Indian community and the newcomers but it is so evident that Australian authorities too comment on the disconnect. Until this point you would think Naqvi is basically presenting an elitist, bourgeois view of the Australian incidents. After this, the article suddenly takes a definitive Marxist tone. Naqvi becomes very sensitive about the underclass, especially those working in the Gulf region. Finally he concludes with the paragraph quoted at the beginning of this post. Basically Naqvi writes to the Pakistani street sentiments. He has to cater to the visceral hatred and lend credibility to every myth about "Indians" the man on the street in that country believes in. He does not really have any sympathy for the Indian (Hindu) underclass, it is only important for strategic reasons. Worse, he uses the excuse of the underclass to make unsavory statements about Indians (Hindus). Funny that he conveniently omits a very relevant example.
posted by barbarindian at 6:54 PM Permalink
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Friday, July 10, 2009 |
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Ironically ... | |
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Barkha Dutt writes:Ironically, it was the politics of cultural assimilation that first helped me change my own textbook positions. It was 2001. 9/11 had just shaken the world and I was in New York. Though it's admirable that there was no violent backlash, I remember how scared Muslims in the city were. In the first few weeks, several Muslim women I met had discarded the safety and comfort of the hijab because they didn’t want to be noticed or targeted. At the city's community centre for Arab-Americans, social workers advised women to dress in a way that would blend them into the mainstream: no headscarves, skirts and dresses, if possible.Why are Indian seculars bellyaching over a remark made by a President of a nation not even in our continent? Isn't that the ironical part? If we are so hot and heavy on choice, what happened to the choice of a sovereign nation to frame their own rules? What happened to the choice of leading French Muslim intellectuals? Meanwhile China has banned prayers in Mosques in Urumqi. But don't expect any opinion piece on that one.
posted by barbarindian at 7:26 PM Permalink
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Thursday, July 09, 2009 |
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G8 is a lot of fun | |
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  The girl in question is 16 years old Mayara Tavares.
posted by barbarindian at 11:01 PM Permalink
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Monday, July 06, 2009 |
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The Arundhati Roy index of development | |
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This is perhaps her first major essay since the elections. She talks a little about democracy and a lot about her narcissistic delusions about the elusive ideal society that she peddles. By democracy I don't mean democracy as an ideal or an aspiration. I mean the working model: Western liberal democracy, and its variants, such as they are. Yet, the closet commies have always sold the ideal or Jannat version of communism, for the simple reason that the there is no successful working model. (At the time of writing, China detained several thousand separatists - after killing perhaps a couple of hundred. Separatists to blame, naturally) She also explains another principle she ostensibly believes in: As a writer, a fiction writer, I have often wondered whether the attempt to always be precise, to try and get it all factually right somehow reduces the epic scale of what is really going on. Obviously she has made no attempt to be precise in the essay, for instance:
Roy performed a coup of sorts when her essay appeared in the leftist American website - Huffingtonpost.com. Her earlier attempt to gain acceptance in America had been a complete failure, she was panned by everyone from left to right. America was still patriotic and it would be years before they would be able to create a critical mass of easily hypnotized sheeple. This has now been achieved, mostly by rapidly growing immigrants, declining education standards and perhaps the natural down tide of civilizational fatigue which some people believe is unavoidable. In any case, her essay (September isn't November, I am so cool so buy my next book) appeard on HuffPo and she was right on the money. Naturally, now her essays will contain items that will titillate the American left, such as bashing certain past leaders of the country. In any case it is a fine balancing act because she has to carefully straddle the thin line between a welfare state and outright communism - American people are stil very uncomfortable with the idea of communism. Perhaps it was this commercial aspect which made her tone down her support for communism. Having been bitten once, she is not going to risk her new found popularity in America. The index of development Clearly Arundhati Roy would agree that democracy alone is not a good determinant of how successful a nation will be. We find that there is another factor with much better predictive power. The nations where Arundhati Roy is popular are screwed up or about to be screwed up. For instance: India: Screwed up (she will agree) Pakistan: Totally screwed up since Arundhati Roy became hugely popular, she writes for Dawn US: Not that screwed up but since her entry all sorts of hell has broken loose EU: Roy is much more popular in Eurozone than in US, always has been. Eurozone was a laggard compared to US Turkey: Getting screwed up as Turkish people have begun offering hugs to Madam Roy.
posted by barbarindian at 10:44 PM Permalink
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Thursday, July 02, 2009 |
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Joys of secularism | |
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  Another day in secular India: Tear gas, stone pelting, stabbing, murders .... These things happen with such regularity that most of the times they do not even get any headline love from media. Given that right now our "liberals" are busy riding the moral high horse in view of the recent Delhi High court judgment regarding section 377, this one is getting even less attention than it deserved. This is simply a set of barbaric and primitive people holding a nation hostage on pain of death and destruction. Some recent ones: 2007: More than a dozen policemen were injured, two of them critically, when a huge mob attacked the Jamia police post in South Delhi 2007: Curfew in Allahabad following massive rioting and protests, normal life impaired for days Feb, 2009: Mentally challenged woman arrested for allegedly desecrating religious text However, this latest episode needs to be thoroughly looked into since it appears to be a well designed effort by sections close to the secular party:
The Hindu attributed the incident to the desecration of a religious school. Other newspapers suitably toned it down or up, mostly away, while playing down the immediate trigger. A swine carcass mysteriously appearing near a Madrassa in the early hours (clashes started at 8:30 AM) raises suspicions. This sort of events have been engineered before. Also, the newspapers did not immediately jump up to blame the usual catchment of blame when such things happen. Of course, the public will be suitably informed as secular power brokers deem necessary, after adding layers of secular journalism, of course. When the sediments of history has been washed away by the ravages of time, who knows what will be left there to report and teach in schools anyway?
posted by barbarindian at 9:54 PM Permalink
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Wednesday, July 01, 2009 |
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Congress proposes, Deoband disposes | |
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 We have been observing with mild amusement the media drama over the possible repeal of article 377. Funny how people never learn, perhaps people do have an inherent propensity for self-deception. Maybe 24/7 barrage of media propaganda makes people truly believe we are a secular country.After remaining on the fence for several months, the powerful Deoband seminary finally came out with their opinion on the issue: A leading Islamic seminary on Monday opposed Centre's move to repeal a controversial section of the penal law which criminalises homosexuality saying unnatural sex is against the tenets of Islam. That pretty much sealed the deal on the issue. After this, assorted UPA ministers and spokespersons were seen furiously backpedalling. Suddenly they were all consensus seeking friendly debators who would never push an issue without consultation with all sections of the society:
Veerappa Moily's singling out of Christian groups as the main barrier for the repeal of the law is laughably disingenuous. These guys can't even honestly admit their subservience to a certain set of people. It is true that most religious groups have hard line factions which oppose the proposed law changes, but there is only one group which can truly veto a democratic process or should we say truly makes India "secular". Equally cringe inducing is the Times of India editorial on the issue which unnecessarily drags the issue of religious conversion into the mix. The piece is curiously titled "One step too far" which appears to suggest their position is against the move. * * * So, why did the secular party raise the bogey in the first place? After all they can't be that clueless about the tenets of a faith or the position of its adherents, which de facto provides their political bread and butter? The answer is quite simple - this manoeuvre alone can create a sizable vote bank for the party. The percentage of people with alternate sexual choices can be as high as 10 percent. This is particularly important for the urban centers. The Reason for Liberty blog elaborates further on the issue. They are of the opinion that article 377 needs to go but Governments should refrain from converting people with alternate sexual choices into a permanent victim group.
posted by barbarindian at 12:23 AM Permalink
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