How the "civil" society got its groove back

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What causes corruption?

Man is as corrupt as his options.

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

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

Is that so?

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

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

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

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

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

QUIZ:

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

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

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

The answer is rather obvious.

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

This is exactly what is happening in our country.

Dark clouds over our freedom ...

There is a thin red line.

The line that divides between freedom and slavery.

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

Consider this:

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

- Dreadful Naxals occupy top health policy positions

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

- In the end, they blame you for it!

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

Happy Independence Day.

Fee-fai-fo-fum

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Justice Rajinder Sachar authored the controversial Sachar report.

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

Harish Khare is the media adviser to the Prime Minister.

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

* * *

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

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

Truck

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

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

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

Perfect metaphors

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

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

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

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

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

* * *

Boy drowns in Congress leader's chemical tank

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The shrinking Hindu space

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Still think you are safe under this administration?

Do we need a Lok Pal bill?

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

surrounding a fasting septuagenarian Gandhian with the Egyptian uprising

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you, Mrs. Sonia Gandhi

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

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

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

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

Cricket fan: Yayyy giggity omg LOL ROFL! We won the world cup, how cool!

Socialist: 50% of India's kids are malnourished.

Cricket fan: Agreed, but can I just burst this last firecracker?

Socialist: NO! You jingoistic nationalistic chauvinistic a-hole from the bad religion!

Cricket fan: :(

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

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

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

Secret things ....

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

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

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

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

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

The lunatic is on the grass

Remembering games and daisy chains and laughs ....

- Brain Damage, Pink Floyd

Whither revolution?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The crosses we bear ...

More pictures at Flickr

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

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

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

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

Rinse. Repeat.

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

Just wondering ...

A 19-year-old boy stabbed to death a Std X student whom he suspected of having an affair with his sister. Yasin Sayyed stabbed Nawaz Hanif Kalifa at least five times and left the 17-year-old to die on the tracks last Thursday. Nawaz was a student of Nice English school in Mumbra. Cops identified him on the basis of his school identity card and his bag, both of which were recovered from the murder spot.

[...]

During investigation, sleuths learnt that Nawaz was romantically linked to a girl from the same school. Preliminary inquiries pointed to the involvement of the girl's family in the crime. [link]

Just wondering if this fits secular/liberal definition of 'Honor' crimes. Article does not mention it though.

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.

* * *

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.

* * *

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.

Sachar Envy ...

In a previous post, we discussed how the community was finding it problematic to push its victim status:

The biggest obstacle to pushing through special privileges for the community proved to be raw data. There was no way to massage this to manufacture a "deprived" victim status for the community. Call it Sachar envy. Soon this was largely mitigated - large number of poor people, like cattle was head counted and factored into stats. Even this proved inadequate. This is why the Kandhamal incident was engineered. Now we have a new victim category with refugees and dead people to show for! Take that, Kashmiri Pandits!

Well, lo and behold, we already have a demand for a Sachar Report for the community!

A meeting of Church representatives, scholars and activists on January 25, which was presided over by Delhi Archbishop Vincent Concessao, decided to petition the UPA government for a Sachar Committee type report on the status of Christians. The report would serve as a reference point for decisions concerning the community, it was felt.

"Our own spot studies have shown how poor groups like tribal and Dalit Christians are but we dont have authenticated empirical data," said All Indian Christian Council general secretary John Dayal. "We want the government to quantify their marginalization in terms of poverty levels, land holdings, literacy and so on like the Sachar Committee did for Muslims. We also want the government to establish burning issues in troubled areas like the Dangs in Gujarat so that they can be addressed." [The Times of India]

Now, everyone knows the community is far from deprived, as a matter of fact they enjoy massive advantages in almost every field, and more so in 'liberal arts' type fields. They dominate journalism, human rights, book publishing, advertising and most other soft sectors. They lead in awards too.

However, we have an interesting problem here. Of course there are those in the community that are not doing well, after all not everyone is John Abraham. So, unless everyone in the community gets up to that level, we will always have grievances, right? This is the unique problem with this type of identity politics. There is never enough. Poor Hindu? Stand in line, we are now uplifting Community 1, Community 2 ....

Then of course we have the numbers game. Suddenly tribals become part of the narrative. This explains why this increased level of missionary activities in Maoist areas, why we suddenly have a Hindu seer killed in a remote district in Orissa, why we have another rotting in jail (the latter's 'confession' being all over media with nary a regard for rights of the under trial, no peep from Human Rights), why we have indignation over (mostly) self-inflicted attacks on religious places in Karnataka, why we have EU delegations interfering with our domestic matters, why the Supreme Court is forced to change certain remarks in its verdicts in an unprecedented manner, why after years we suddenly begin to accept UK aid, which invariably flows through certain organizations.

When the Sachar Report II finally comes through, rest assured to find apples to oranges comparison just like in Sachar Report I. Recently acquired members (who is gonna check?) will drag down the average and it is all the way to the bank for community leaders.

Funny thing is, we already have a parallel Government running with Sonia Gandhi (anyone knows her faith?) as its tenured President, it is called the NAC. This organization is planning to control every drop of milk squirted from the mammaries of our welfare state and no one could claim they are being misdirected. But we still have grievances.

Call it the burden of secularism.

Free, Fearless Journalism ...

So, after furious backpedaling for over two years by the Government (which according to rumors may be headed by the Congress party), finally some moves are being made to bring back black money home. Lo and behold, now everybody and their chachaji wants to bring back black money home! Funny thing is, when the black money issue came up just before last elections, everybody and their auntyji said - well, various things.

Anyway, we digress.

As a trailer for supposedly bigger things to come, a number of individuals with accounts in the LGT bank of Liechtenstein, Germany, are being pursued. Tehelka claims it has "accessed" the list. Now, the original list had 18 names on it, Tehelka published only 15 with much fanfare and over the top triumphalism:

TEHELKA has accessed 16 of the 18 names, of which we are putting out 15 right now. These names include individuals as well as trusts. At this point, we are putting out 15 names without disclosing details like their addresses, the businesses they are involved in and the total money they have stored away in Liechtenstein. Abiding by the basic journalistic principle of proving the accused an opportunity to present their side of story, TEHELKA has approached each of these individuals involved and is awaiting their response. [link]

Now the intriguing question is, why 16? Why not all the 18? As such none of these individuals have been found guilty of any crime yet. So, like the Spectrum scam losses, their guilt is presumptuous. There are three possibilities as to why 16 and not 18:

(a) A metered leak from the Govt (allegedly headed by the Congress party)

(b) Leaked by a whistle-blower with only 16 names

(c) Leaked by a whistle blower, last two names too hot

These are situations which stretch your imagination and push their credibility or perhaps the other way around.

Anyway. Having gotten over that bit about 16/18, we are suddenly faced with a strange situation. If all 16 names had been accessed, why publish only 15? The question perhaps intrigued other individuals as well, Tehelka faced a barrage of queries.

• 16th name on 'The List' to be out in a few hours...
• More developments happening on the 16th name... Sorry to make you wait a little longer. Will keep you posted.
• Sincere apologies. Between developing stories and technological hiccups-- the two big stories planned for the day will have to wait :|
• No. 16 on the Swindlers List... Out in a few minutes... (This time for real)
• The 16th name on the Swindlers' List...

This is far more suspenseful than the Oscars and arguably about as entertaining.

These messages indicate the tremendous amount of emotional turmoil Tehelka folks must have been going through. In any case, Tehelka did indeed publish the 16th name on the list, more than 2 days after publishing the first 15.

The 16th name rated a full story of its own for some inexplicable reason, with loads of explanations. The 16th name happens to be a member of a large family run industrial house.

Now, Tehelka can not claim they were waiting for the individual to offer his side of the story, since the other 15 had not been given this opportunity. So, why was this name held up? The guy was too big? The fearless folks of Tehelka, supposedly crusaders for the small guys holds back the one big name on the list? Or is it perhaps religion? Or secularism? Or some other reason? Perhaps we will never know.

Religious Banking is here!

In a previous post, we had pointed out how India has progressively moved towards compliance of religious laws. As it stands now, India is nearly as compliant as Pakistan, certainly more compliant than Malaysia or Qatar.

By its ruling to allow religious banking/finance institutions, the Kerala High Court has opened up a whole new paradigm. But are we ready?

Sure enough, the current entity expects to operate wholly within the framework of Indian laws. But what does Indian law exactly mean? Who creates laws? The track record of our lawmakers starting from institutionalizing medieval religious practices through constitutional sanction to Shah Bano to more recent cases does not inspire any amount of confidence.

The most alarming aspect of the case is that this is not a private company trying to offer just another product with a largely superficial label, with not much consequence to anyone else. The entity in question is Kerala State Industrial Development Corporation (KSIDC), a state owned entity. The rationale being provided is absolutely bunkum - this is a real estate investment Public-private-partnership deal with a mutual fund type arrangement. Religious issues most certainly are not in the way of getting Gulf based Kerala diaspora into infrastructure - and this appears to be the primary pitch!

Secular blowhards have been trying to legalize religious banking for several years now, with The RBI steadfastly opposing such moves. For instance this report shows what a minefield this can quickly become in terms of regulations and bureaucratic overload. Even under the current arrangement, there will be regulatory costs. Someone has to pay for it. What if investments come a cropper? It would be too tempting to do a social justice bailout.

The reasons for this enthusiasm is quite clear. This type of moves are cheap popularity stunts performed for the M-Street. Additionally, the religious label will make sure law enforcement and financial regulatory bodies keep their hands off. Like most other religion tinged concepts, it will likely morph into a money laundering operation with other attendant ill effects.

We have let the camel's nose in the tent, the beast will come in.

The unbearable heaviness of secularism

Wednesday, January 12, 2011. In a couple of weeks time, the nation would celebrate its 62nd republic day with much fanfare. But here, the situation was grim, very different. In fact, the place looked like a mini battlefield. Large contingents of Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Rapid Action Force (RAF) and city Police personnel had been deployed. The police used teargas shells and had to resort to lathi charges; the mob armed itself with brickbats and set fire to random things. Stone pelting, vandalism. Dozens of people were injured. The main arterial road, a National Highway no less, was blocked for over a 3-km stretch, causing major gridlocks in the area. The entire neighborhood was locked inside their homes, too scared to come out. The protests continued for two days ...

We wouldn't blame anyone for saying this sounds like a bad day in Srinagar. Only, it wasn't. It was right in the heart of our capital city, not far from where the rulers of the country, leaders of the designated secular/liberal party would participate in the Republic day celebrations. Only two weeks later.

So, with a secular/liberal party ruling the country and the city-state itself being ruled by the same preferred political dispensation, why the unease, why the aggravation? Also, why are so many folks from the chatterati class yet to wise up about the incident?

We will attempt to answer the second question first. Surely, the sheer scale of the incident rated a headline and a breaking story on the various TV news channels? But there was simply no mention of the incident on any of the news channels. Not a peep. This got us curious - we reached out to Barkha Dutt, senior editor of NDTV. She confirmed that all the TV channels decided to black out the incident and it was an NBA (News Broadcasters Association, a cartel of TV news channels) decision.

Needless to say, this is highly disturbing. TV news dominates the world view of most literate Indians and drives much of the opinion business. Ms. Dutt herself hosts several shows on her channel. Now, if important items like this are completely blacked out, what does it do to the reference point in any debate on national policy? After all, information is the key driver in many debates. Aren't we essentially killing any effective "debate" if we do away with about half the information? This is hardly an isolated case - dangerous riots in Miraj, Bareilly, Deganga and many other places are unceremoniously dumped on the floors of editing rooms.

* * *

The genesis of this trouble dates back to a quasi constitutional and extremely odd institution called the Waqf Board. Saba Naqvi's article [Edited for sensitivity]'s Left the Building is as good a resource as any for a quick intro. At 4 lakh acres, the Waqf board is the third largest landholder in the country, behind only railways and defense. The logic behind this institution is peculiar - Mughal era monarchs donated huge tracts of land for charitable purposes, following an established religious custom. After independence, all this land was put under the trust of Waqf board, and get this, for the EXCLUSIVE use of the community! Well, just whose land is it anyway?

Needless to say, the board leadership takes full advantage of this. Instead of putting the land to use for the benefit of the poor in the community, they do all sorts of sordid deals. Every once in a while our secular nation then replenishes the land, from the common pool.

Any time an illegal religious structure comes up for demolition, it is an opportunity for the Waqf board to acquire more land. The easily excitable faithful create enough trouble for the local administration to back off. This is exactly what happened in New Delhi.

* * *

As you can see, all this makes the BJP's so called flag yatra to Lal Chowk rather redundant, no matter which side of the issue you are on. By historical accident Kashmir just happens to be demographically skewed across one state. In every city, every hamlet, every corner of the country, we have thousands of mini Kashmirs. All these Kashmirs are really off limit for the state. The controlling elements of the community makes sure the larger population is held hostage to them. Progressive elements are hounded out, like they forced the newly elected leader of Deoband seminary to resign for going against the grain. Popular imagination is captured not by the likes of M. J. Akbar or Azim Premji, but by perpetual grievance mongers like Shabnam Hashmi. Human rights mafia led by the likes of Teesta Setalvad etc. ensure that the community remains in a state of constant paranoia. Secular politicians form the final link in this ecosystem - a community that prays together votes together. The cycle continues. We continue to have faux debates, armed with partial info.

* * *

So, what was the final outcome of the drama? We leave it as an exercise for the readers to figure out. It is there in the references.

References:

Facing contempt DDA demolishes Mosque
Mosque demolition causes protests, jams
Waqf attempt to grab land
Local Residents get threatening calls
Jama Masjid - secular leaders rush to woo community leaders
Demolished Mosque will be rebuilt - Sheila

21 years of exodus

Read more at: iKashmir.net

Week-o-leaks

Secularism as a concept died in India the day Rajiv married Sonia ....

Admittedly history could have taken many different paths. Rahul's grandmother and former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi did not have to get killed in the hands of militants. Rahul's father "jeetenge ya loosenge" Rajivji would not have to leave his flying career and subsequently get killed by who we now know to be terrorists of another hue. But history took the course it had to and now we have Rahul snitching about "Hindu terrorists" to the US ambassador - according to leaked cables.

So, massaging and lazy explanations aside, the leaked cable confirms what we knew to be true for a while now - the Prince does not consider himself as one of us or more accurately, he does not consider us to be one of his. His vision for a future India solidly excludes us or at best reduces us to a body of cheap labor and clerical work. We have already seen from the Radia tapes how much collusion has taken place at the top. The exclusive officers' club has been built and its gate is being shut on our faces. If you want to pass through the strict face control, make sure you carry your Youth Congress card.

Remember Sonal Shah?

It is important to understand where the Prince derives his world view from. Obviously the biggest influence had to be the Queen, who after decades in India still remains ill at ease with Hindi. According to another leaked cable, the usually reticent and aloof Queen poured her heart out to California first lady Maria Shriver to such an extent that they titled the cable - "A garrulous Sonia Gandhi opens up to Maria Shriver". So here we have Italian Mama gabbing to her Germanic cousin. History may not repeat itself but it sure does flirt with memory.

In her conversation Sonia clearly comes off as a person on a civilizing mission. But we digress.

Sonal Shah was the Indian American woman who made news for becoming one of the first persons of South Asian extract to be made part of President Obama's transition team. Soon she was to find out blood is thicker than water. We all know who was behind the ghastly, nefarious and apocryphal campaign against Sonal Shah, as also against The Times of India reporter Balakrishna.

The idea is very simple and alluring. The vast millions of soft office jobs that so many of us covet (and upon landing such a job think the world of ourselves) - you can easily take out a large part of competition in one fell sweep. All you need to do is create a demand for an absurd and nearly impossible to prove moral requirement. Then either you are the right color (figuratively speaking), or you must show the Youth Congress card.

The worldly contact of the Prince largely comprise of the people behind that campaign. What might they be telling the Prince?

Squeezing the Free Agent voters:

Like most political parties in the World, the Congress party realizes the mortal danger "free agent" voters present to them. The first most visible of these were rather absurdly the so called NRIs. Congress and its minions went hammer and tongs at them. Old issues of The Outlook magazine still carries those articles - they provide good comic relief. The second source of free agent voters are produced by the Education system. Having received a drubbing once from the NDA dispensation, UPA realized the dire need to squeeze these obstinate types. They launched a multi-pronged approach.

- The first consists of completely destroying the primary education sector so that - (a) Missionary schools flourish (b) Changing the curriculum so that the "right" values are inculcated from an early age. The RTE act was designed to bring about this change.

- The second consists of destroying the Entrance test based system and gradually replacing it with a strong secular filter such as an interview. Efforts are on in this area but currently suspended due to the unfortunate portfolio reallocation due to the 2G scam.

- The third is to formally introduce religious quotas in education. Already we have minority institutions. Conversion, where possible, is underway - for instance a century old Agricultural institute suddenly got renamed and its students even took out a religious procession!

Already top posts in Government and bureaucracy are being strictly face controlled (eg CVC). In the Indian Administrative Services interviews for instance, the only right answer to "who was the all time great ruler of India" - is Akbar the great.

Free agent voter reduction program, aside from achieving the demographic rengineering goals has the extra advantage - 2G, CWG etc are much easier to pull. Everything stays in one happy extended family.

On ground tactical aspects and International intrigue:

The biggest obstacle to pushing through special privileges for the community proved to be raw data. There was no way to massage this to manufacture a "deprived" victim status for the community. Call it Sachar envy. Soon this was largely mitigated - large number of poor people, like cattle was head counted and factored into stats. Even this proved inadequate. This is why the Kandhamal incident was engineered. Now we have a new victim category with refugees and dead people to show for! Take that, Kashmiri Pandits!

Then of course we always have the UN route - if you do not let us rule, we will complain to the UN. Already the High Court in Gujarat has taken strong exception to certain Human Rights groups making unwarranted complains to the UN. The leaked cable proves this strategy can be and will be extended if UPA loses a national poll in the future.

In other words, in one sense, Rahul Gandhi might have simply been preparing a hedge against future election defeat when a quasi-legal internationally supported maneuver could still help retain power.

In Conclusion

If the above sounds too conspiratorial to you, we have two points to make. First, just because you can not see a glacier move does not mean it is not moving. The signs are too ominous to ignore. Second, when Digvijay Singh with his wild conspiracy theories becomes the leading mentor of India's future PM and consequently his conspiracy theories are all but tacitly approved by the High Command, it is no longer a conspiracy theory. The fact that they sanction such views is reason enough for alarm and caution.

Secular Hindus must make a hard call at this juncture. If they do not want to end up like Buddhists in South Korea or Hong Kong, the time to act has arrived. A few generations later it might be too late. Remember that "I am not very religious" "I am an atheist" etc. cuts mustard only with Hindus.

We refuse to succumb to fashionable concepts. We refuse to accept ANY absurd moral requirement dictated to us by people with vested interests or otherwise hostile to us. We reserve the right to act as we please within the Indian legal and constitutional framework and ... TO HELL WITH YOUR SECULARISM!