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Strategic Matters

What would be your strategy if you were leading in a two yacht race?

History is like a Radiohead song, long boring stretches followed by short spasms that really rock. The past few months in India (and possibly a few more to come) will etch a stronger mark on the pages of history book than most periods in recent times.

For one thing, we saw our decades old strategic paradigm changed in a mere fortnight. That the non-alignment thing was a sham and a practical impossibility was never in doubt, but at least India had a few firm principles that no one would dare violate.

It was interesting to watch the Devil's Advocate interview of Arun Shourie.

Karan Thapar: Yes. The whole of interpretation of the Hyde Act is irrelevant to the NSG

Arun Shourie: You are making assertions about the Hyde Act which are absolute bunk.

Karan Thapar: The NSG has given India fuel assurances. There is no bar on the size of strategic reserve. It gives India unlimited access under NSG concerns to non proliferation and enrichment technologies. It also allows India the right to reprocess. All of those were deemed to be deficiencies by some analysts — deficiencies in the 123 that have been taken care of by the NSG.

Arun Shourie: You are just completely fabricating things which are not there in the guidelines at all. Where is this bit about unlimited supplies in the NSG guidelines?

Karan Thapar: There is no bar. The NSG waiver permits India access to fuel supplies without restriction, it permits India to develop strategic reserves without limitation, it permits India access to proliferation technologies that are so defined to do with enrichment and reprocessing.

Arun Shourie: You are completely lying through your teeth to your viewers.

Karan Thapar: The point is — there is no bar on them. This is a waiver which is an exemption.

Basically Arun Shourie's contention was that the waiver didn't have explicit provisions for building strategic fuel reserves. Karan Thapar's view was that, the waiver didn't explicitly prohibit building of strategic reserves either!

It would be absurd to pretend that the NSG countries will act as though the US did not exist. So, it is futile to argue which item (Hyde Act, 1-2-3, NSG Waiver) supersedes what. As we see it, the point of these supposedly legally binding treaties is to ensure that if in future these countries try to impose any sanctions or take even more severe measures - they have something to fall back upon to make a pretense of being "moral" in front of the whole world. This pretense of morality is highly necessary for the North America/Western Europe bloc. We are not suggesting that they are being unfair, despite their overwhelming military and economic might - but even the mighty needs a layer of propaganda.

According to some experts, ultimately the NSG countries, whose list looks like a who's who of US client states, will act according to prevailing geo-political conditions of the world. Hence one should not get too worked up about strict interpretations of those documents.

This is an acceptable view, except that it drastically changes our strategic doctrine. From the dire and urgent need to maintain our nuclear sovereignty in view of hostile neighbors, we clandestinely moved to where we feel no need to test, i.e. hope and prayers.

We strongly recommend reading B. Raman's article in The Outlook and Shobori Ganguly's article in The Pioneer. We are willing to bet many of the facts in either article will come as a complete shock to many cheerleaders of the Nuke Deal.

Karan Thapar has a point, Arun Shourie is being pessimistic. But optimism is a poor substitute for strategic thinking.

Coming back to the yacht race, the best strategy is to exactly emulate everything the trailing yacht is doing. You can't go wrong - even if both makes the same mistakes, the lead will be maintained.

The Congress strategy is essentially the same. In a Tehelka interview, P. Chidambaram said that the BJP does not have any original economic policy. This was a remarkable statement which gave away the anxiety of the FM. Actually it is the Congress which does not have any strategy. They did, in the earlier decades of Nehruvian Socialism. We had tonnes of doctrines, principles etc. etc. both on economic matters as well as strategic. After the collapse of that regime, essentially Congress is just trying to beat others to the shore - by even making the mistakes the others are about to make. The OBC quota scheme is a case in point. It was not something they planned to do but it was an idea whose time had come. They had to beat the regional parties in the race.

The same thing is happening in economic areas also. After being a very belligerent opponent of any reforms of the BJP led NDA Government (this war was fought both inside and outside the parliament, by launching psyops and deploying a cavalry of evangelical socialists), suddenly Congress had a bad case of reform-envy. Hence the hurried Nuke deal which changed our strategic doctrine in a fell sweep.

So, our foreign policy is now held hostage to electoral politics. This in itself is a mind blowing change, whose repercussions will be felt for decades to come.

A taste of "Azadi"

Militants in Jammu and Kashmir are using torture to intimidate the people of the region. Brutal accounts are emerging of how militants are doing whatever it takes to instill fear in the community. One man told TIMES NOW how his ear was cut off after he refused to part with his mobile phone and SIM card. Another women had her ear cut off because she refused to cook a meal for the militants. Militants did not stop at that, they kept beating her and she later died of her wounds in hospital. [link]

Eight OBCs held guilty for the Khairlanji massacre

On September 29, 2006, a large mob of OBCs attacked and brutally killed four members of a Dalit family at Khairlanji in Nagpur, among them Priyanka Bhotmange, 17, pictured above. The nation was shocked at the gruesome killing.

Well, justice has finally prevailed, or should we say some semblance of justice, because out of the mob of about 50, only eight have been convicted.

We sincerely hope that the court considers this a "rarest of rare" case. The irony is, this sort of incidents are not really rare.

It may be noted that the same year, the nation was engulfed by a tumultuous debate over the issue of awarding reservation in centrally funded institutes to OBCs (in addition to the up to 69% reservation benefits they enjoy in all Government jobs and all but a few central institutes and minority colleges). Sadly, Priyanka (named after Priyanka Gandhi, a scion of India's ruling dynasty, which had tabled and since then passed the controversial bill) never got to go to college.

Heart Breaking News

Perhaps this is the beginning of the undoing of what was once a great civilization. Funny thing is, even that innocuous statement will invite storms of protestations from the intellectual class. Maybe this is by design, we don't know.

as far as eyes can see
there is a world for you
and a world for me ......

India's Bridge to nowhere, not built

NEW DELHI: In a bid to undo a Himalayan blunder, the government has scrapped the four-year-old project of building the world's highest bridge on Chenab (359 metres), a crucial part of the first railway line to Kashmir. The delay in cancelling the bridge, which was supposed to be built for Rs 512 crore, may cost it dearly as the government is already facing claims of Rs 300 crore from an international consortium involved in the project.

The abandonment of the bridge follows a belated discovery that it is unfeasible as the gorge in a high-relief mountainous region is not stable enough to bear the load of the mega steel arch. [link]

Is this important? Not really. But had it happened during the NDA regime, it would make it into a "Face the nation" show. That's all we are saying. Some other news items one came across in recent days that went sulking for want of a TV show:

- Dinner for Rajdhani express being prepared in an unhygienic facility
- More than 50% of India is poor according to latest poverty stats
- More than two thirds of India defecate in the open

We are not saying that these things are happening all of a sudden, just that these are not getting as much attention since "their Government" is at the center. That's all we are saying. perhaps they are all busy covering the American election and the Nuke deal.

There was another curious piece of news - a lot of kids died during clinical trial of drugs at AIIMS. This got a lot of coverage and eventually it was found that the kids who had died were terminal cases anyway. Funny thing is, the Health Minister (Sri Ramadoss) ordered an inquiry into the incident and generally made statements as if he has no responsibility in the matter.

This is the great advantage "their Government" enjoys in terms of public image. AIIMS good? All due to Ramadoss. AIIMS bad? No fault of Ramadoss, oh those stubborn casteist Doctors! Railways good? Laloo of course. Railways bad? Hey look look, Deepika Padukone!

A screenshot is worth a thousand words in a history book

Hope. Prayers.

CNN-IBN signs the CTBT

CNN-IBN editor Surya Gangadharan hosted a chat show in which he answered various questions from readers on behalf of the Government. A sample from the transcript:

Vijay: Any reverse affects if Obama comes to power?
Surya Gangadharan: He will be tough on non proliferation, may insist on India signing the CTBT (which we probably will next year).

Can anyone point out any other democracy at any time in history where citizens were so empowered? We can give Azadi to parts of India (too bad they didn't want it in the end). We can also unilaterally sign important international treaties on behalf of the Government.

Come to think of it, the recent events are pretty consistent with if Arundhati Roy were India's Home Minister and External Affairs Ministers rolled into one.

Desi "liberals" are in for a big shock

LOL.

The mis-argumentative Indian

In India, debates are settled by repetitively shouting straw man arguments. The side that shouts the loudest, wins. So, what was the Nuclear Deal about? India's energy needs you say? Well, can't find that in any newspaper reports. Let's look at some of the ideas put forward in support of the deal:

We need Nuclear Power:

No, we don't. We need electrical power, not specifically from Nuclear reactors. Unless we get it real cheap and without hassles. What we have here is not cheap, and not likely to become a significant source of energy in the next decade or so, despite the "deal". Let's not even talk about the hassles yet.

We need Electrical Power:

No we don't. We need to develop resources we can trade in exchange for power. If we are good at producing Rutabagas, let's make lots of Rutabagas and sell it to Bangladesh. Then we use the money to buy thermal power from grids off Pakistan or Hydro power from Nepal. Flippancy aside, even during the rare moments India Inc. actually thinks "reforms", we have a way to completely distort it still it stops making economic sense.

This is a pertinent point rendered a straw man argument by the after-deal fiasco. As we see it, reforming the conventional power sector, meaning which keeping Sibu Soren type of politicians away from the coal ministry and allowing more privatization will have a much bigger impact than Nuclear power. In fact given that only about 10% of projected installed capacity of 300,000 MW (Kalam estimate: 400,000) in year 2020 will come from Nuclear reactors, we must reform the energy sector in general and not get entangled into the kind of wild goose chase which kept the Government from functioning normally for almost 2 years of its tenure.

Oil is becoming expensive:

Oil is not used to make electricity in India. Next?

Actually, coal and gas are becoming more expensive too but so will nuclear fuel. Plus oil has become a victim of gravity lately anyway.

This is our last chance:

Just because Congress has a few months to go, doesn't mean we need rush into something this important. To paraphrase H.D. Kumaraswamy, in international politics there is no end. Countries are observed for macro level behavior. No one would remember we backed out of this deal. But if we test a small device in Pokhran desert, the liberal crowd in West Europe will sulk for decades now. Actually, there is a case for holding off this deal because in a decade or so we may get a front door entry into the Nuclear club and not a back door entry which we are attempting now.

President Kalam likes the deal:

This has little value other than say celebrity endorsement for soaps and detergents. Kalam is a technological man. Men like toys. Besides, Kalam's take on the deal is something very different. Here is CNN-IBN transcript and here is the TOI transcript for the recent Kalam interview. Watch the interview, the man has a completely odd perspective on the testing issue.

Kalawati wants Nuclear Power:

Well, Kalawati wants food, shelter and education for her children first. This would be the classic socialist argument, so it can be turned on its head. Assuming Kalawati does get prosperous and able to afford electricity, in year 2020 only about 10% of her electric will come from Nuclear reactors.

Nuclear Power is high-tech:

That is the basic problem, Nuclear Power has a sex appeal that titillates the middle class crowd. Admittedly, Nuclear science is at the most cutting age of science. But we are already doing some good Nuke stuff. We can still do those things and more.

India's Nuclear isolation (apartheid) will end:

Surely this is a subliminal appeal to the automatic revulsion Indians feel towards the caste system but has nothing to do with the original objective (Electricity, remember?). It is being implied that unless we do this deal, our development in all fronts, not just Nuclear Power, will be impacted. The Nuclear "isolation" only limited to a narrow range of technologies.

Our technological development is actually constrained by our own domestic laws more than any international restriction. Even the Nuke power thing will require repealing domestic restrictions on private investment. Funny thing is, the Pundits who are vociferously batting for ending "isolation" supported our dreadful anti-development Nehruvian regime for decades. Just read some of the editorials when the NDA Government was attempting to reduce our "trade isolation".

The Nuclear deal is complex and hence ordinary people won't understand it

Actually much of India's problems are a result of intellectual overload. Perhaps we need a cultural revolution. Right about now the Nuclear Deal is being hailed in exactly those terms the giant public sector follies were hailed during the Nehruvian days of socialism.

BJP also wanted this deal:

And that makes it a good deal? A pure conjecture and hence a straw man argument. In any case, the fact that BJP had something to do with this is being purged from history as we speak, after the King Singh's great "victory". The TOI timeline here, CNN-IBN timeline here. Do you see a mention of BJP?

BJP would have signed it under much less favorable terms:

See above.

It turns out that Congress also signed it under much less favorable terms! Pranab Mukherjee made a grand speech and they simply appended it to the waiver text. We should really keep politicians out of diplomatic matters - they simply do not know the difference between when they are speaking to Kalawati in an election rally and when they are speaking to the top hawks in the world.

US internal memos will not impact international agreements:

This is confusing cause and effect or rather precedence and antecedence. We could explain it but too tired right now.

Hey, does anyone still remember the original objective?

We do not need to test in the near future:

Singhvi said in a CNN-IBN show that we tested only twice, we may not test again in 20 years. Kapil Sibal also said the same thing. This is quite a departure from what they were saying before they went to IAEA. From their bravura stance of "we shall not make any compromise" they are now down to hope and prayers. Well, good luck, fellas.

Reactors are dying:

Well, after the deal, there will be a lot more reactors at the risk of death.

Muslims have no objection to the deal:

Seriously, our national policy must be endorsed by them. That is the most important thing.

Bloggers support the deal:

Well, yeah, sure.

How big a deal is Nuclear Power?

This is the latest report on what industry stalwarts estimate will be the business opportunities opened up by the Nuclear Deal:

An overwhelming 85 percent of the 300 chief executives polled held the view that modifications to India's Atomic Energy Act of 1962 could help the country to generate some 20,000 MWe (unit of nuclear power) by 2020.

[...]

The act [India's Atomic Energy Act of 1962: India's domestic act restricting Nuclear power generation to the Government] and the decades of India's nuclear isolation had resulted in capping the country's nuclear power generation capacities to an extent of just 3,900 MWe in over 60 years of independence.

As a result, out of a total installed generation capacity of about 145,000 MW of electricity, 70 [percent] is accounted for through thermal [coal and gas] fuel and 20 percent by hydro, with nuclear energy contributing to just two percent.

The remaining capacities come by tapping the various sources of non-conventional energy such as solar, wind, biomass and tidal waves. [emphasis added]

Let's walk through this.

In year 2008, the total installed capacity of Nuclear Power is 3,900 MW out of a total of 145,000 MW, i.e. 2.7%

Assume that our total installed capacity doubles to about 300,000 MW by year 2020. This is about 7% annual growth. It could be more.

Industry experts estimate our Nuclear capacity could go up to 20,000 MW in year 2020. This is about 5 huge plants generating up to 4,000 MW each, costing $15 Billion or more each. This will be just about 7% of our total installed capacity for electricity generation. Let's round it up to 10%, assuming even more aggressive capacity building than the industry pundits are estimating.

So, in essence the Nuclear deal will allow us to achieve just 10% of total installed generation capacity through Nuclear technologies by year 2020. This will be at a higher cost compared to conventional energy sources which will be inevitably heavily subsidized and the cost ultimately passed on to the taxpayer.

Admittedly there are fringe benefits - environmental, Indian companies may become suppliers of components etc. but there are things we will lose out on. There is the element of long tailed risk (Chernobyl etc.), land acquisition issues and the minor matter of sacrificing potential Thorium based solutions (provided we do not blow up our Thorium reserves along with the Ram Setu by then), pushing our domestic producers away from developing other technologies (Wind, Solar and Sea waves and indeed more efficient and cleaner thermal solutions).

This helps us to put into perspective the debate about sacrificing national security. A lot more on that later.

[Update]

The Business Standard confirms the projections. Also, this is how Dawn, Pakistan's leading English paper reports it:

For global nuclear energy companies, the decision opens the door to an atomic reactor market worth billions of dollars with India aiming to double its share of nuclear power to five to seven percent by 2030.

The Confederation of Indian Industry forecast business opportunities worth around 30 billion dollars over the next 15 years with India needing about 18 to 20 more nuclear reactors. It now has 22 reactors. [emphasis added]

Indian newspapers are maintaining a radio silence on this statistic. We are reading frothy editorials, poetic flourishes, self-congratulatory pats all around.

An unknown unknown

So, India got the NSG waiver! Singh is now the King of the World! Let's air drop leaflets of the NSG Draft text in the flood affected areas.

We would have gone through the NSG phase without much fuss, except for the explosive leak of a "secret letter". Until that happened, questioning the N-Deal would make you a pariah. But a funny thing happened, a secret letter was "leaked" and the ensuing confusion proved beyond doubt that no "intellectual" in India had really done a thorough job of thinking through the whole thing. Needless to say there will be lots of new interpretations and angles to cover this up, but let's not kid ourselves.

The TOI screencap, taken just after the expose, amply demonstrates this as does this NDTV show. We especially like the screencap, it completely summarizes the serious problems we can potentially run into - yeah, China, land acquisition, environmental protests. It shows utter chaos and confusion amid the TOI editorial staff. Extremely alarmed that this can cause serious trouble to their beloved party, they immediately put up that headline blaming Bush. That explains all the troubles in the world these days, doesn't it? Curiously though, this was the guy who pushed for the N-Deal in the first place. Are we missing something here? Some people have claimed that the leak itself was a ploy to allay the fears of NSG members. This is too cynical and conspiratorial a view of the world.

The economic implications of the deal has been conspicuous by its absence in all the debates on the issue. Nuclear power is simply not economical, unless you assign an arbitrary high value to environmental impacts. Refer to this MIT study and this WSJ article. Even the breaking news on yahoo says this:

Rood said it would help meet India's growing energy needs while helping the developing country — a major polluter — cut back on harmful emissions that experts warn are contributing to global warming.

It is not clear if the US or Western nations will subsidize the high costs of Nuclear Power plants by extending the carbon credit logic.

People like the deal for different reasons. We have essentially adopted a head in the sand approach for getting something of arbitrary value proposition in exchange for unknown handicaps on our strategic programs.

[Update]

Every American expert we heard so far on CNN-IBN or NDTV are saying "clean energy". No one has said anything about "economical energy". For instance this CNN-IBN segment.

(to be continued ......)

Assam floods, Maggi 2-minute noodles and a humble proposal

Sad news from the North East, Assam is looking at a very grim flood situation. Though not nearly as bad as Bihar, the situation is bad enough. It does not help that resources are stretched thin across several troubled zones: Orissa, Bihar and now Assam.

We appeal to media and bloggers to not politicize the floods. Much damage has been done already and we are as guilty as any other. But then again, it is a moot point. The flood in Assam means they will dramatically reduce flood coverage.

Amid all this hopelessness, a curious piece of news came to our notice. The Health Ministry has decided to distribute Maggi 2-Minute Noodle packages. True to his style, Dr. Ramadoss has done something no one would normally think of. This is a brilliant move. Thank you, Doctor.

Here is why. Perhaps the key to fixing all our PDS mess lies in this. Think about the fundamental issue of PDS - that of pilferage of food grains. Just like any other socialistic scheme, the goods do not reach the intended recipients (Rajiv Gandhi estimate: 15%, Rahul Gandhi estimate: 5%). Some people have suggested reforming the PDS by introducing vouchers. But this will not be adequate to fix the leakage issue. As long as the food distributed by PDS has an open market value, it will be looted.

If the PDS really has a social function, it is to ensure that food reaches the most needy, starving people. The Government should replace normal food distribution and introduce a substitute packaged food that is not very appealing, at a nominal price. Call it Denatured Nutrition Program. The direct impact of this will be that no one will pilfer food that has no open market value. Only people facing hunger will buy this food.

Perhaps this is as silly an idea as any other, but no sillier than the idea of PDS in the first place.

Coming up ....

RAW DEAL:

How the 'secular' establishment made a chootia out of Indians


Previous Posts:

July 28, 2007: The Nuke Deal: An open RTI petition: Questions an ordinary citizen must ask
August 04, 2007: Roaches: What about the 'liberal' nations?
March 08, 2008: A bad melodrama: Sign of things to come
July 22, 2008: Not convinced about nuclear power: It's the economics, stupid

Note: In case you find a certain word in this post offensive (we are pretty certain some seculars will pretend to be extremely hurt, 'oh! these abusive bloggers!'), we point you to this short story by Khushwant Singh.

Election

NEW DELHI: St Stephen's College on Wednesday elected a Kashmiri boy to the post of president for its Students' Union Society. Adnan Nayeem Asmi, a third year student of the BA (Pass) course, defeated his only rival Maryam Fatima of third year BA English (Honours) by a margin of 122 votes to become president. [...]

The new president hails from Srinagar district in Kashmir. He completed his schooling from Tyndale Biscoe School where he scored 85% in his class X and XII boards. His father, Fiaz A Asmi, is a manager with State Bank of India in Srinagar. After his boards, Asmi came to Delhi and joined St Stephen's to pursue his under graduation in humanities. Since then he has been an active member of the Students Union of the college. [link]

Looks like St. Stephen's is a fine secular establishment. Although it's a shame that it was a Hillary vs. Barack type of situation. Guess you can't have everything.

The point is, the Government should have jumped at this great opportunity for propaganda. In fact our media should have assumed a proactive role and at least made it into a nice little TV show for the consumption of the undecideds in Kashmir. It would also help neutralize Pakistani propaganda.

Oh, wait, this is our secular media we are talking about. Never mind.

A "rare" but heartening sight

The Kosi may have changed its course killing and displacing many in Bihar, but the river has also 'sank' religious differences as evident in relief camps where RSS men were seen serving food to Muslims. Clad in khaki shorts and caps, RSS men are serving gram and flattened rice to Muslim flood victims in a relief camp at Saharsa. The camp being run by 'Seva Bharti', a Sangh Parivar outfit, at the zila school campus at Saharsa presents a rare but heartening sight where the devastating deluge of Kosi has sunk bitterness and differences.

"Over a 100 people of my community are taking shelter here for more than a week now and we have absolutely no complaint. Life cannot be better than this in a relief shelter," says Mohammed Salauddin, who fled Parba village in Madhepura district along with his family to escape the flood fury. [link] [emphasis added]

Power of spin - a single word changes everything.

People are strange, when you are .....

Hate in C Minor

Caption not too far off the mark: John Dayal makes a
menacing gesture towards BJP leader B. P. Singhal

On an NDTV discussion, MIM MP Asaduddin Owaisi asked a very pertinent question. He asked what if Haywood was Hamid? Would the Indian Police let him get away so easily? Thank you Mr. Owaisi. These are good questions to ask. After Haywood left, it was discovered that he was in India on a fraudulent visa (he had definitely lied about his purpose of visit).

Interesting things happened on the CNN-IBN show (from which the above screen cap was taken). This was a show on religious issues and true to form, myths flowed freely. They also got mercilessly shattered.

Apparently Minister of State Prakash Jaiswal had claimed that he was not allowed to go to the troubled site. Many newspapers including the Outlook are spreading this canard. Well, it turned out that he did not go to Kandhamal because of bad weather.

John Dayal claimed that "It is very difficult to become a Christian. If you're a Dalit, you lose your job and scholarship." This is less than half the truth. None of the conversions in Kandhamal were done legally, meaning which the collector was not notified. In many instances they still continue to claim these benefits. Also, this applies only for SCs. Secondly, although they may have to forsake benefits under SC quotas, they become eligible for minority institution quotas (St. Stephens)! There are other fringe benefits, check out the AP roster of recent GO orders and legislations. One mustn't forget that there is also the OBC quota to consider. So, Mr. Dayal's attempt at this inane spin miserably falls through.

The show did not go very well for Rajdeep Sardesai. Two persons who shone were BJD MP Tathagata Satpathy and Renuka Narayanan, editor of HT. Readers may recall that Satpathy was the only MP who spoke against the OBC reservation bill. Not only does the man speak well, he cuts through BS like hot knife through butter. No friend of Hindus or BJP, Renuka Narayanan refused to toe the party line. She told off John Dayal in no uncertain terms.

Now let's get back to the two more pertinent issues:

The first is the issue of Christian terrorism and violence. This is a serious issue that must be addressed immediately. Part of the problem is that the community has managed to stay out of radar and as a result has become infested with hardcore communal fundamentalists. Minority status does not automatically grant secular credentials. It is clear that rent seeking behavior has crept into the community. Nefarious activities like the Haywood case are taking place. Now they are openly threatening to form private militia. Wherever there is numerical superiority, such as Kerala etc., they cause distress to others. It is not that they are making much social progress either: in fact it seems like they have boarded a train back to the middle ages. The hushed up sex scandals in Kerala, religious indignation over movies etc. stands testimony to this observation. Most alarmingly, the self-styled seculars of this community have maintained a wall of silence about the problems within the community, while constantly highlighting problems of other religions. In any case, it is like, their problem, so we are not much concerned.

The second issue is of course that of religious conversion and its place in the LDR (Liberal Democratic Republic). If you are confused about the issue, it will only take a few seconds to realize that conversions are immoral by definition from a secular standpoint. You can not claim to respect all religions and then turn around and support conversions, especially the Industrial scale expedient variety that is happening in India. A post by Offstumped though somewhat frivolous in tone, explains this. We would argue that religious solicitation is even worse than sexual harassment.

There is no such thing as voluntary conversion. The exceptions are so few that they are statistical errors or special cases (formation of a new religion or cult, mass scale political conversion etc.). Most conversions are done under duress or inducement. The Swami was killed because he was shattering this myth on a day to day basis for all to see.

As far as its place in the LDR is concerned, we believe any attempt at changing the demographics, especially at this aggressive scale using foreign funds, is downright illegal. Simply because it breaks down the original socio-political contract people agreed to when they joined the LDR. It is downright silly to expect people to not react to it. Who will guarantee that the whole thing will not turn very violent? Certainly historical precedence and current behavior of the community does not inspire any amount of confidence. What is happening now is akin to ethnic cleansing. It is merely a slow form of invasion by foreign forces.

The United Nations does not have anything specific to say about religious conversions. It simply can not when the practice is illegal in most of its client states. So next time John Dayal runs to the UN screaming bloody discrimination, he may want to ponder this a little. In fact India should approach the UN for setting ground rules for conversions. Nations with homogeneous populations are advised to stay off this debate. It is not your goddamn problem.

A final word about the peace protests and rallies:

There is a buzz on the internet that reluctant students were made to march in peace protests and rallies. The reluctant part is unverifiable but quite plausible. Very few parents regardless of religion will let their precious little snowflakes go anywhere near political rallies. This is outrageous and utterly despicable. Using children for propaganda or warfare is nothing new, The Palestinians do it all the time. At least they use their own children.

Flood and politics

When it rained in Bombay during the NDA regime and the streets got flooded, it was Vajpayeeji's fault. Until then the Bombay street floods were a natural occurrence, as they were in the past few years. So stop bitching. Think of the bright side - your kids can float paper boats.

The river Kosi is called the "river of grief" in school Geography texts. This fact was hammered into our heads in no uncertain terms. Devastating floods during the Congress rule of early decades and Laloo rules in later decades were either ignored or reported with religious fervor. Add to it the complete inability of a socialist regime with little resources to deal with natural disasters.

This year, Bihar experienced extreme floods and our friendly neighbors, the Nepal Maoists may have had something to do with it. Reportedly they did not allow Engineers from Bihar inside Nepalese territory to repair the dams. They also released water in a suspicious manner. This needs to be investigated.

Now, India may not have the institutions at place yet but plenty of money to throw at problems. The PM's generous grant of Rs. 1000 crores (a thousand crore has become the minimum denomination of doles) smacks of opportunism, given that historically Bihar has received scant little assistance from the center.

The media is doing its bit to rub CM Nitish Kumar's nose on the ground. Extreme coverage of private efforts at flood relief is aimed at proving that the Government is doing nothing. Laloo Prasad is getting ten times more face time on TV. He has announced free train services which is counter intuitive. Trains are not running in flood affected areas. So in essence this measure will give local goons a free license to terrorize legit passengers.

There was a footage splashed across TV channels involving Laloo Prasad Yadav that will go down in history as the most depraved display of opportunistic politics, aside from being utterly tasteless. Here is a rough screenplay:

[Laloo addressing a rally]
Laloo: Sarkar jo karegi so karegi par hum apne party ke taraf se, RJD ke taraf se yeh karenge (whatever the Government does, we will do it on our own, from our own party).

[Flood affected area. Partial shot of a sports utility vehicle front passenger side. Laloo is on the passenger seat. TV crews and flood victims loitering about].

Laloo: Bolo, TV camera par Bolo, sarkar ne kuch nahin kiya. (Say it, say it to the TV cameras, the Government hasn't done anything).

People [off screen]. Kuch nahin kiya, Sarkar ne kuch nahin kiya. (Didn't do anything, the Government didn't do anything).

Laloo [hands out a currency note, taken by a man not seen]: Bolo, Laloo Prasad Zindabad. (Say - long live Laloo Prasad).

Crowd: Laloo Prasad Zindabad. (Long love Laloo Prasad).

[Camera zooms into the vehicle, Laloo in focus. Laloo is handed a small baby, Laloo brings the baby into the vehicle.]

Laloo [speaking to the kid]: Bolo, Laloo Prasad Zindabad. (Say, long live Laloo Prasad)

[Laloo holds the baby up, then puts him on his lap, coos the baby a little, then holds him close to his face, touching his forehead affectionately to the child's forehead. Then he places a currency note on the child]

Laloo: Bolo Laloo Prasad Zindabad (say, long live Laloo Prasad).

Missing the forest for the trees

"Innocent middle-class" citizen Shoma Chaudhury with Ram Jethmalani

Perhaps Tehelka is getting some heat for their SIMI clean chit project. We don't know. But they reacted just like they did after the Gujarat fake sting - they let the choir gal out.

Shoma Chaudhury writes:

As privileged middle-class Indians, as a rule we mostly live in cocoons of well-being. This makes us dangerously innocent. We believe the world is a straight place.

Awwwww, Shomaji, you don't say. You are no ordinary middle-class citizen. Journalists seldom are. After all which other ordinary middle-class Indians get to hobnob with senior Congress leaders and ministers? Sad to learn that her political cherry popped only about seven years ago.

The point is, we find it hard to believe she wrote this article with a straight face. More likely she was bursting into peels of laughter while penning this. This sort of defense is put up in elementary schools.

In case after case, issue after issue, the Tehelka people claim to be "innocent". Innocent of what? Their innocence is broken when they discover a "terrifying", "disturbing", "frightening", "dark" secret. And all this is happening way after they attained adulthood. They must have been really clueless!

The second common theme can be best described as persecution complex. For a magazine with insignificant subscriptions, they have not only survived, but spread their tentacles deeper and wider. It is a racket. Recently we noticed CEOs writing funny columns and coincidentally ads of those companies were appearing on the same issues. What is this? "Advertisement for article" scheme?

In this environment, Shoma Chadhuri's claims of being "innocent" and "clueless" about the dark world of intrigue yonder is quite untenable.

TEHELKA holds no brief for SIMI. (Or any other organisation.)

This statement from Tehelka invites scrutiny not just for what it means but for the sheer number of times it is repeated. Will Tehelka's office boy believe it?

Shoma Chaudhuri goes on to claim that they pretty casually decided to investigate SIMI. Someone said "Yeh SIMI wala chakkar kya hai?" and they did the project. Maybe so, but the fact is they did not investigate SIMI. They already had a conclusion. They merely conducted interviews (only SIMI members) and filled in the gaps. This is neither investigation, nor journalism. This is propaganda.

There are complex and sophisticated arguments that SIMI intellectuals put forward to back their stances. “Why don't people want to have a dialogue and hear out our views instead of jailing us?” says one SIMI activist.

There is nothing sophisticated or particularly complex about SIMI's arguments. These are savages with medieval mentality. Tehelka's sanctimonious self-defense can not blind us to the fact that they have gone so far batting for a certain type of politics that they are now forced to cheer for an ideology which does not even recognize the values Tehelka claims to stand for.