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

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.