Tunisia, Egypt ... etc.

Perhaps counter-cyclical political events provides for the largest servings of irony and the Middle-Eastern 'revolution' falls firmly in this category - so far as the Indian political scene is concerned.

Just imagine how the secular journos, intellectuals, human rights and other assorted Left-Lib types would cover this thing had it happened during the NDA regime. But we have what we have and ironically (a double dose, if you like), the regime, with its ~$100B scams looks every bit like the despotic regimes the Middle-Eastern folks are trying to depose.

In any case, Indian journalists went to Cairo in hordes. Short of a story and short on analysis and certainly deprived of a suitable political narrative to spin, they decided to make it about personal valor. The social media scene was abuzz with (mostly) brave journos patting each other etc. Funny thing is, they did not actually come in harms way to the extent some Western/Middle-Eastern journalists did. Some spent a few nights in the cooler. Most spent the time holed up in the Indian embassy, only to come out during times of relative calm and that too avoiding the rough areas.

The Barkha Dutt docu-drama called The Women of Egypt is a perfect example of this. It was at least in part an attempt to redeem herself from #barkhagate using the Kargil flashback. Already being hailed as a masterpiece, award-worthy etc. the documentary shows Barkha walking around about town, microphone in hand. She also interviews a few what appeared to be a few elite Egyptian women at their homes.

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This is not to suggest the Egyptian scene was not dangerous, quite the contrary. Unfortunately, the attack came from unexpected quarters. An American journalist was brutally assaulted at the Tahrir Sqaure in Cairo. She suffered a sustained attack and beatings by a mob of about 200, who yelled "Jew ... Jew ... Jew ..." while setting upon her. This wasn't the only such incident.

It took several days for the Mecca Cola drinking Left-Lib media to deliberate and finally release the information (after censoring the chants). Why? Because it largely cut through the narrative of 'revolution', or rather the Western conception of it. Secondly, the revolution is being worked into a storyboard of achievements for Dear Leader, in prep for 2012. Baaaaad Boooosh attacked Saddam, but The Great One liberated Egypt by delivering just one speech in Cairo!

Shortly afterwards, instead of a proper root cause analysis, they were able to steer the conversation towards a few fringe comments. Business as usual. But that did not prevent a particularly loony Left-Lib to actually connect this attack to 'Hindu Nationalists'!

This and various other factors, history etc. does not make us feel particularly warm and fuzzy about the whole deal. We just have to wait and watch.

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We were particularly anxious to see the effects of this revolution upon our domestic faithful. Historically, the heart of the faithful has always throbbed for the global movement, for instance Khilafat. But so far there is not much evidence of any ripple effect.

Actually, we are not too sure - is it possible the disturbance is manifesting itself in different ways? As we discussed earlier, there was a dangerous riot in New Delhi, involving the demolition of an illegal Mosque. This was largely censored by the media. Well, there was another one, also censored by media, this time involving the expansion of a burial ground, in New Delhi. Then there was major rioting in a village in Rajasthan.

Would they actually rise up and depose a secular Government? It would be rather interesting.