Phase II: Media PsyOps in progress

(click on images for a larger version)

Nov 26, 2008: At 9:30 PM the operation started. By midnight, the damage control was already well underway.....

They were out there in large numbers. The secular barbies of prime time TV. The attacks were so sudden that there was no clear directive from the control centers. They ran helter skelter, camera crew in tow. They showed the carnage. From all possible angles.

Pretty soon the enormity of the situation became evident. This was much bigger than anyone would have contemplated in their wildest dreams. Meanwhile news of the ATS chief's death came in.

Don't politicize terror attacks:

The media stumbled upon a stop gap solution while the headquarters started figuring out a strategy. The secular party has expensive PR agencies at its disposal. So do the media houses. Within 24 hours, the political strategy was already in place. The media strategy was more difficult - the end points were known but it is a tough straight line to draw from the burning Taj hotel to the ultimate recipient of the blame.

Visit politics:

Day II provided an easy exit for the media. Narendra Modi visited the sites on his own. L K Advani soon followed. These events were played way up while the media hosts lamented how these "politicians" were exploiting the situation. Media managed to find onlookers who expressed disgust. By this time the branding of the incident was complete. It was India's 9/11, all cops who had died at the event were total martyrs (unlike Mohan Chand Sharma who died an ignominious death in Delhi - more on that later). People must rise above politics. It was India's tragedy. For a blow by blow account of what really happened, please read this account. As a side note, the media also attempted an Indian version of 9/11 widows. The talking heads claimed that Karkare's widow had turned down compensation from Narendra Modi, this turned out to be untrue.

By this time the marine commandos and NSGs were fully engaged and the media had lot of grounds to cover.

Diffuse:

The enormous potential political price must have sent the media honchos into a frenzy as it would have sent the strategic heads of the secular party. An operation of this scale requires meticulous planning.

The first thing to remember in asymmetric warfare is not to take direct blows. By day III, the operations were happening in contained zones. By this time, the political strategy had been fully worked out. Since that forms the basic of media strategy, the talking heads were much more composed by this time.

The secular barbies were thronging the sites now and letting people vent. Within a few hours, a new enemy was created - "politicians". Suddenly public forgot that they had been electing these politicians for six decades. People expressed their anger - some articulate, the others not. Those who were not, spit more on the microphone.

Scapegoats:

Before we come to the scapegoats, we must dwell upon the objective a little bit. The objective of any warfare is to save the most precious assets. First you send out the infantry. When they go down, you launch artillery. Then you send tank batallions. But you must never ever endanger the queen.

Public wrath demanded scapegoats. They wanted names and faces on the newly created enemy - the politician.

The easy scapegoat was of course Shivraj Patil. A relic of the past with little political leverage, he was thrown out of his office without much fanfare. Public demanded more. An obvious choice is Maharashtra CM Deshmukh. Unfortunately the dude has strong local support. So they focused on his deputy R R Patil. They twisted an unguarded remark by Patil and played it repeatedly. But Patil wouldn't budge - strong local support. It is highly possible that this is a red herring, but we are not sure.

Then comes the highly comical part. Deshmukh went to visit the busted up Taj hotel, with his actor son in tow. Now, anyone who has even the slightest knowledge about Indian politics knows that Ritesh is one of the well behaved political scions (contrast with Lalu's kids - eve teasers, D P Yadav's kid - murderer or H D Kumaraswamy's high school dropout spoilt brat). Now, the film director Ram Gopal Verma happened to be with the party when it went to Taj. Notice in the picture above, how media has not only managed to find Ram Gopal Verma but put a red circle around his head.

The media wouldn't stop talking about it. It creates pressure on Deshmukh. The entire thing may have been designed to deflect attention. Remember, you must not let any stray bullet hit the queen. Launch decoys.

All Party Meet:

Now we come to the hypnosis phase. The queen safeguarded, it is time to go on the offensive.

By now the secular party announced the bogey of an "All party meet". Now, an all party meet makes sense when you need to reach a consensus across party lines. The only point of contention here is the POTA, which the UPA will never agree to and which the BJP leaders will strongly insist upon. At this stage of lame duck Government, whose legislature met on only 32 occasions so far this year (out of which 3 were spent on the cash for votes scam), only now announces an "all party meet".

A bit of background: last year, L K Advani happened to meet Rahul Gandhi at an airport. He gushed about it to reporters. The junior Gandhi gave him the royal snub. L K Advani does not realize that he is not dealing with gentlemen. The rules of engagement are very different here.

Anyway, so the all party meeting was convened and Advani and Rajnath Singh were not present. This is being treated as an unpardonable sin by the media. The media is insinuating that they are playing politics and missing such an event of national importance for the sake of attending political campaigns.

It is hard to come across such straightfaced lie and vile propaganda. Given the back story with the prince, it is likely that the said all party meet was convened at a time it was not possible for Advani to attend it. Here is the real story:

NEW DELHI: BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate L K Advani and party chief Rajnath Singh skipped the all-party meeting convened by the Prime Minister on Sunday to discuss the terror attacks in Mumbai, as they were campaigning for the assembly polls in Rajasthan. Expressing his inability to attend the meeting, Advani called up the Prime Minister to say he was busy campaigning in Rajasthan and would meet him on the issue soon after returning to Delhi, BJP sources said. BJP's Deputy Leader in Lok Sabha V K Malhotra and Deputy Leader in Rajya Sabha Jaswant Singh represented the party at the meeting. [link]

The message is being reinforced with images of the queen (see above, a special frame totally distinct from other politicians) and ticker messages. The idea is that the queen is really above politics and Advani is the bad dude here. So finally we have a name and a face for the bad politician the public must direct his anger at.

So, what really happened at the "all party" meet? Well, the PM announced a Federal agency to tackle terror, four NSG units in place of the only one right now and better maritime security. Details are here. As to the highly original and daring plan of a federal agency to tackle terror, this is the background:

The proposal [to set up a federal agency] has been in the pipeline since 2000 when former Home Minister L K Advani, asked the K Padmanabhaiah Committee on Police Reforms to examine the feasibility of declaring certain crimes as federal offences "to enable a central agency to undertake investigation, without any loss of time."

The Padmanabhaiah Committee then opposed the creation of such a body, warning that it could affect federal balance.

The proposal was once again taken up in 2003 when the Justice V S Malimath Committee recommended that the time had come for setting up a ''federal investigating agency with an India charter.''

In a bid to soothe federal sensitivities of states, the Malimath Committee said the proposed agency should have ''concurrent jurisdiction'' over federal crimes.

Home Minister Advani could not push through the federal agency proposal and his successor Shivraj Patil was confronted with an adverse recommendation from the Administrative Reforms Commission headed by Congress leader Veerappa Moily. The Moily-led commission then recommended that crimes of a federal nature could be investigated by a specialized wing of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). [link]

Flashback

[channel jingle]

Sagarika Ghose:

Yes it is 10 pm and it is time to face the nation. J&K was peaceful today but the peace is deceptive for the first time in a decade openly separatist slogans
are being shouted out in Srinagar:

[chewing every syllable, relishing every word]
Jeeve jeeve Pakistan
Long live Pakistan
Bharat teri maut aayi ... Lashkar aayi Lashkar aayi
India your death has come, Lashkar is coming
[Lashkar is LeT, the group believed to be behind the Bombay carnage]

An almost 5 lakhs turned out at the United Nations office at Srinagar. Shouted these slogans the central government is looking helpless ... Kashmir is drifting ... dangerously away from India ...

Hatch your own conspiracy theory

The best one so far:

Our worst fears have come true. It is clear that Mossad is involved in the whole affair. An entire city has been attacked by Mossad and probably units of mercenaries. It is not possible for one single organization to plan and execute such a sophisticated operation. It is clear that this operation was backed by communal forces from within the Indian State. The Home Minister Shivraj Patil should resign. The RSS-BJP-VHP-Bajrang Dal should be banned. Advani and others ought to be arrested. Today is a day of shame for all Indians and all Hindus. Muslims and secular Hindus have been proven right. RSS type forces and Israel are all involved in not only destabilizing but finishing India. India should immediately snap all relations with Israel. We owe this much to Karkare and the brave ATS men who had shown the courage to arrest Praggya Singh, Raj Kumar Purohit, the army officer and several others. [link]

Another interesting piece of news came in [via a comment on Offstumped]:

BANGALORE: In a landmark judgment, 11 of the 23 persons convicted in the bomb attacks on churches in Bangalore, Gulbarga and Hubli in mid-2000, have been awarded death sentences.The special court headed by Justice S M Shivannagoudar in its order on Saturday also sentenced the other 12 to life imprisonment.All the 23 are activists of the banned Deendar Anjuman outfit which seeks to make India an Islamic state.They had carried out bomb blasts at churches in Wadi in Gulbarga, Keshavapura in Hubli and Jagjivanramnagar in Bangalore.

[...]

Three of the 11 sentenced to death are from Bangalore: Mohammad Ibrahim, Abdul Rehaman Sait and Amanath Hussain Mulla; six are from Hyderabad: Sheikh Hasham Ali, Mohammad Sharfuddin, Mohammad Akhil Ahmed, Ijahar Baigh, Sayed Abbas Ali, Mohammad Khalid Choudhary.The other two are Hasnuzama of Nuzwid and Sayed Muneerudin Mulla of Hubli. [link]

Who needs GPS when you have NDTV, CNN-IBN and TimesNow TV?

Terror planners, save a bundle in your next endeavor.

From a comment on the previous post:

rc has left a new comment on your post "The script changes little ...":

News just in, the medias live coverage of the helicopter airdrop at Nariman house really pissed off the police. It showed clearly :

1) How many commandos were airdropped
2) What kind of weaponry they possessed
3) Which door on they roof they made their entry
4) How many made their entry and how many were providing backup and at what locations.

At other locations, Media showed sniper locations clearly, what building and what windows. Showed location of fire personnel (so they would set fire on the opposite side). All this was being followed by the terrorists. I claim the media is responsible for the losses suffered by the commando units.

What took the cake was the anchors in Bangalore and Bombay who HAD to zoom in on the parents of commandos who were killed. Never mind that these families need to grieve in private and not be hounded by OB vans, what about exposing their identities.

Keep in mind the media was officially asked by the police and NSG not to show live coverage. The media worked this around by introducing a few minutes lag!

Also read this post on retributions about media insensitivity. On another occasion when after interviewing a survivor, Rajdeepji asked him one more last question Sir (isn't there always one) - how exactly did it feel when you hugged your toddler son for the first time after being rescued? Barkha Dutt was describing the devastation at the Taj. Camera, show here - look look, broken glass. Oh my, the princess room - totally busted up. And here - ugh rotting corpses. Then a beat cop rudely threw her out.

A few months ago India's media honchos grouped together (perhaps in a five star hotel similar to the ones destroyed) to develop a code for self-regulation.

The script changes little ...

Onlookers near a residential area under siege (not in frame) in Bombay, November 27

So, within a few hours of all hell breaking loose over Bombay, Sagarika Ghose unilaterally announced a new rule - terror must not be politicized. Then like a dishonorable general breaking her own armistice, she invited Rahul Dholakia (the fat filmmaker of Parzania, India's Michael Moore) to a show. She also badgered various BJP leaders with questions like - are you still beating your wife (its Hindutva variant really)? Of course she got a mouthful in return but that is unlikely to help the Hindu leaders. Sagarika Ghose discussed ways to solve the terrorist issue. Her attempts at keeping voting out a certain political party from the realm of a possible solution was comical. She concluded the show by saying if ordinary citizens stop paying bribes and start wearing seat belts, terror attacks can be prevented.

"Terror must not be politicized" is right up there with "Terror has no religion". An interesting post summarizes what else you are not allowed to politicize.

We have been through all this before. There is one entity and only one that is above all criticism in India and it is the secular party. When it miserably fails, it is "Governance". When its cities are laid to waste by handful of gunmen, it is the fault of our "political class". On other occasions it is the fault of the judiciary, globalization or George Bush.

The media's nervousness is palpable, being the bastard child of the feudal order that has been ruining India for 60 years and with elections coming up, the attacks are being elevated to levels comparable to the WWII bombing of London. The attackers are being elevated to the level of indestructible zombies.

Meanwhile the only people who will make out like bandits form all this are the secular media and intellectuals. Mahesh Bhatt was asked to comment on the attacks. He asserted that even the almighty America can not prevent terrorism (i.e. do not blame Congress). Then he said India is just waking up to it and you ain't seen nothing yet. You ain't seen nothing yet - he said again, chewing every syllable. Ok, dude, whatever.

One can not help wondering after watching the chaotic, erratic, cacophonic coverage of some of our secular media that perhaps the dynastic factor is leaving out some of the able reporters on the street. Surely among the many young women reporters of CNN-IBN who braved any number of hazards out on the streets, there are some who are more articulate and more intelligible than the shrill Sagarika Ghose. But they do not enjoy the legacy, a paternal handout from the DD days and some tapes that may exonerate or provide belated alibis to senior Congress leaders in their alleged complicity in the ghastly 1984 riots.

Barkha Dutt was outside Nariman House when the operation there ended. She was pointing out the NSG commandos waiting in buses. She pointed out people congratulating the troops and how people were saying Jai Hind. How people were raising anti-Pakistan slogans. Sadly, she added. After three days of near non-stop coverage, her voice hoarse, her footsteps faltering with fatigue, her politics was still crystal clear.

Advisory

Some of you may be tempted to forward many anti-Pakistan/anti-Congress SMSes that will inevitably make rounds in the days to come. We strongly recommend that you refrain from doing so, unless you are self-employed, politically well connected or otherwise empowered to take care of your own ass.

Why? Because of the Balakrishna episode (original post, follow up).

If you are a BJP supporting Hindu living in a Congress/secular neighborhood, you might want to consider hiding your political affiliations for a few months.

Vote for change

Please go out and vote for change. Rahul Gandhi is India's Barack Obama. Why vote for him? Because you as an Indian deserve the very best.

Jai Rahul Baba.

Dude, where is my country?

Just a matter of time.

Shocking!

Now you are ready for a more advanced course in West Asia. Let me stress that the following is not typical but it is revealing. On November 12, 2008, MEMRI published its video clip No 1903 which you can see at http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/1903.htm. It is from a television show aired on October 31, 2008. First, I will tell you what it says, which is profoundly shocking. But then I will give you reasons why it is far more shocking than you thought.

The person being interviewed proposes that Arab men sexually harass Israeli women as a new means of resistance against Israel. “They are fair game for all Arabs,” the interviewee explains, because they “rape the land” by their very existence.

Might this cause a legal problem if an Egyptian or Jordanian rapes an Israeli tourist? No problem, the interviewee explains, "Most Arab countries do not have sexual harassment laws. Therefore, if (Arab women) are fair game for Arab men, there is nothing wrong with Israeli women being fair game as well." [link]

Do read the full article and be sure to watch the linked video to understand just how grave is the implication.

What could go wrong?

What could go wrong in the scenario described in this report?

Hint.

Our intellectuals

In his latest post, blogger realitycheck mentions an article by Ram Guha, who is no stranger to this blog or its readers. Guha is always interesting to read, so we read the Guha article linked from the post.

Guha writes:

Enough of nostalgia, I will be told. Forget the past — who now, in present-day India, is the politician who is not wholly unremoved from the style and strategies of the remarkable Barack Obama? Here again, there is an unacknowledged precursor, if at first glance a somewhat unlikely and unprepossessing one. Nitish Kumar has no Harvard degree (perhaps no degree at all). He dresses in a crumpled kurta, not a well-pressed suit. He is an indifferent orator. Still, he too speaks of, and in some measure, practises, a politics that is non-sectarian. When the National Democratic Alliance said that it would project the “Gujarat model of development” to the whole country, Kumar asked them instead to showcase the Bihar model of development, since it was “inclusive”. (The last word, as used by the Bihar chief minister, was an euphemism for “not anti-Muslim”.)

This paragraph vividly illustrates the sheer brazenness of our intellectuals. They do not even bother to do a basic fact check. Nitish Kumar has a Bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering. He was the railway minister before Lalu and although the media does not give him credit, he strengthened the railways. Lalu merely added froth and public relations.

This is the nature of political discourse in India. Sound bites - yes, substance nil. All you need to do is add a sprinkling of the magic keywords - social justice, secularism etc. No need to do any fact check. No need to do any research.

Given that Guha elevates Nitish Kumar to the stature of India's Obama, he simply can not be excused for not looking up the man. Makes one wonder about Guha's widely celebrated book on India's contemporary history - India after Gandhi.

Hindu? It will cost you

The French philosopher Pascal once argued that believing in God has a net positive value. Well, it turns out that believing in certain Gods can actually be quite harmful - it could cost you your career.


As we noted in the previous post, there is intense competition for the attention of the American President elect, Barack Obama. A Hindu American woman, Sonal Shah (pictured), happens to be a member of the Obama transition team. This created a ruckus like you wouldn't believe! A quick google news search reveals the extent of the trouble Ms. Shah is looking at.

Ms. Shah has to go to absurd lengths to assuage the world that she is Kosher. She issued a denial in the current web issue of Outlook. Several eminent Indians have also penned a column in the same issue, savaging the "baseless innuendoes" against Ms. Shah. The funny part is, the column itself is full of innuendoes about two political organizations.

Unfortunately for Ms. Shah, it may be too late. It is not going to help that the eminent Indians who penned the column are all Hindus (except one).

The Sonal Shah episode reminds us about the Balkrishna incident (original post, follow up) - only it is much more sinister and needless to say way more prominent at an international level. This also speaks of the level of paranoia the secular buggers in India suffer from. They are constantly whining how the Hindu outfits are growing strong in the US, yet it is Narendra Modi who gets his visa denied. Meanwhile rabid Mullahs, harcore leaders like Ahmadinejad et al have no trouble getting to the US or Eurozone.

Basically this is a harbinger of things to come, once seculars gain a threshold strength in India. With unchecked infiltration and industrial scale conversions, that day may not be far.

Obamas 'R' Us

Right about now there is an intense competition for the Obama mindspace in the media/intellectual sphere. There are hundreds if not more intellectuals desperately fighting to outdo each other. Who liked Obama first? Who wrote the most frothy article? Who can suck up the most? Who is the mostest uberest super liberalest of them all?

Predictably it is leading to a lot of jealousy as well, almost like the multiple concubines of Mughal Emperors. They have even unearthed info that a Obama transition team member (a female economist) has RSS roots! Everyone panic! CNN-IBN posted a news story explaining how L K Advani is copying Obama by creating a website. This was a bit bizarre, this wasn't his first website and he couldn't possibly time his birthday to match the Obama victory. Neither is Obama the first politician to use websites - Narendra Modi has had dozens for years now (since before anyone knew there was such a dude called Barack). But then those were deemed as propaganda tools for fascist ideas - hence bad for mankind.

All this is leading to some pretty bizarre situations. It almost seems like Obama could do away with his PR team since Indian intellectuals are defending his every supposed gaffe even before they are made into issues by Obama's rivals in America. For instance a TOI article defended Obama's gaffes in his very first press conference. A critical post from Obama's rival quarters can be found here.

Perhaps the most amusing Obamania article came out in The outlook, the current lead story on the website.

First, let's look at the article in the spirit in which it is written, i.e. a farce. The article is very short for The Outlook standard and even compared to the past articles by the same author. Written up in a rambling tone, it profusely mixes up issues. Numerous articles in the past invariably compared Mayawati to Obama (correct contextual comparison) and concluded niet. This is the first time the situation is analyzed in the religious context (politically incorrect, shrouded with denial context by the dude himself - Freudian slip?).

It is quite clear that the author doesn't really believe or particularly want a Muslim as a PM of India. His main aim is to provoke. If you want a people to accept a leader they do not consider their own kind, calling them bigots is not, repeat NOT a good way to start.

(.....to be continued)

Hindu Terrorists found! Can we please hang Afzal now?

Had it not been for the American elections, the media would be abuzz with minute by minute details on the Hindu terrorism case in which almost half a dozen people (including a Hindu Sadhvi and senior army personnel) have been arrested so far. A google search reveals the frantic reporting and painstakingly written reports that are crying out for space on the headlines. A google news search on Hindu Terrorist reveals the great deal of attention this is getting on the media from Islamic countries.

There is nothing objectionable with the term Hindu Terrorist. There is a reason terrorism is treated differently from ordinary crimes. There is a strong reason to attach the ideology that causes it. The case of the Sadhvi finds its roots in the same sort of ideology that causes minorities to blow up innocent people. As the recent case of the Software Engineer (19 Lakhs per annum salary) proves, poverty etc. leading to terrorism is largely a mythical construct.

There are several things that stand out in this case.

First, there is the deafening silence from the so called Human Rights activists. We have to give them time to digest the other important news and get back to regular programming but don't hold your breath for Arundhati Roy to appear on Devil's Advocate and punch holes on the case based on conflicting media reports. No demands for a judicial inquiry either.

Second, the police have acted in pretty much the same manner in which the prior cases were dealt with - at least the recent ones. The measures included confinement, interrogation , narco analysis and forensic tests, wiretapping, cross referencing witnesses etc. There might have been some third degree involved - no loss of limb or life (except the Delhi encounter case, but a cop died too).

Given that the current course of action is yielding some success, it should be continued. Alas, if only the world was so simple.

For one thing we are dealing with a community that has a very unique way of looking at things. At least two thirds of the community globally if not more believe that 9/11 was a Jewish conspiracy. There is already demands for opening up past blast cases, even solved ones. The Shahi Imam has made statements to the effect that no Government is taking care of the community. The community leaders in Assam are all set to form a new party, riding on the sizable and growing population.

In a sense this was inevitable. Once propaganda takes root, it is hard to temper it or throttle its momentum. Clearly over the decades there has been a conscious attempt to channel real or imaginary minority discontent towards a certain political goal. Ideally the activists and secularists would want it to stop right after defeating BJP. Right about now there is no going back. The secular propaganda way overshot its original target and there is widespread discontent that does not necessarily distinguish a secular Hindu and a communal Hindu. The anger is now targeted at India Inc. as a whole. As an example, the recent IM emails excoriated the Maharashtra CM and even lashed out at Tehelka.

You can not wave the red flag of freedom and then take it away at the last moment. This beast will break through everything. The case of the Hindu Terrorist, even if dealt with a strong hand will produce the exact opposite of the intended effect.

Did you listen?

Schoolgirls in Assam don't want to talk - nobody listens to them

"Assam is facing external aggression and internal disturbance." This comment from the Supreme Court came not after the serial blasts that killed scores but more than three years ago on July 12, 2005. [...]

Both the governments paid scant attention to the ominous signals that the Supreme Court read from the November 8, 1998 report of then governor Lt Gen S K Sinha, who had prepared it after a thorough inspection of border areas and districts, discussions with the Indian high commissioner in Bangladesh and talks with political leaders. What Lt Gen Sinha’s report brought out before the apex court in 2005 was the grim ground reality of Assam. His report stated: "The illegal migrants coming into India after 1971 have been almost exclusively Muslims... Muslim population in Assam has shown a rise of 77.42% from what it was in 1971. Hindu population has risen by nearly 41.89%." [link]

Meanwhile a a funny thing came to our notice. A CNN-IBN article (one of the current headlines) reports that "according to latest official figures" an estimated 2.2 lakh illegal Indian immigrants are residing in the US. A google search reveals that similar stories came out on TOI, the Economic Times and The Hindu. Now, the actual report [pdf] appears to be dated September, 2008. The news release also came out in September.

Why then would so many Indian newspapers report it in the month of November?

What's the connection you ask? Well, if you were able to figure that out, we confer an honorary bachelors degree in Indian politics on you.

Marathi Manoos vs. the LDR and the Train connection

Seeing itself is an act of violence. For example, if you listen to the words of a homeless person
with your eyes closed, they may have different meanings. When you see people you unconsciously judge them, and discriminate against them.

- dialog from the movie Tokyo Marigold.

Shobhaa De has penned several articles on her regular TOI column excoriating Raj Thackeray's regionalism. So, her astounding volte face on her Devil's Advocate interview came as a huge shock.

Not only does she lend full moral support to Raj Thackeray's ideals (sans the violence, of course), she seems to be irked by the influx of outsiders:

Karan Thapar: You’re saying two very interesting things – it’s been hijacked in their minds and that today Mumbai is every one else’s first and Maharashtrians’ last. Are Maharashtrians being discriminated against?

Shobhaa De: I would, to some extent, agree that they are being discriminated against in terms of job applications like the Railways – we saw last week what happened there – because Maharashtrian himself/herself has not perhaps fought for their rightful position within the state or the city. I say that with a great amount of compassion, not just for Maharashtrians but a system that seems to not recognise the dreams and ideals of the locals.

Karan Thapar: Before I come to why they haven’t fought for their rights, you are really seriously saying that today in Mumbai – the capital of Maharashtra – Maharashtrains are getting a raw deal?

Shobhaa De: I am definitely saying Maharashtrians get a raw deal which does not mean that I, in any way, support violence or endorse what Raj Thackeray stands for. What I am saying is that the raw deal has a lot to do with the Maharashtrian way of asserting or not asserting themselves.

As we have argued several times on this blog, this vividly illustrates that we set out to play a game without agreeing upon the rules. Now we have fouls all around and we can't decide on a neutral referee. Shobhaa De certainly does not speak for all Maharashtrians and neither does Raj. However, it is amply evident that there is an undercurrent of strong discontent. Political parties are only too willing to exploit the situation. According to De, even the intellectuals are bound by a "conspiracy of silence".

It is an easy ruse for the garden variety secular-socialists to pin the entire blame on Shiv Sena or MNS. Meanwhile Congress and NCP has been playing soft Marathitva to MNS' hard Marathi regionalism. They commissioned the giant Shivaji statue. When a newspaper criticized the expensive move, their offices were vandalized by Cong/NCP hoodlums. Even the official order for mandatory Marathi signboard came out of the Maharashtra legislature. Of course, Raj did more than his part to enforce it. It has been alleged that Congress reacted too late before arresting Raj, thus extracting political mileage out of the situation.

Elsewhere in the interview, Karan Thapar points out that statistics does not bear out the claim of the regionalists - that Maharashtrians are well represented in jobs. Shobhaa De doesn't seem to agree - she claims to see only outsiders at construction sites.

The whole situation is one of massive denial by all parties concerned. Are Marathis really agitating for construction jobs? Having been screwed over by a system that allowed certain communities to corner the wealth, they have only one option left. Or at least the option that should be obvious to anyone with a short-term perspective. Raj Thackeray can not be singled out for blame for indulging in identity based politics when virtually every intellectual in India does the same thing. At the time of writing, the lead story on Times of India, the largest circulation paper in India laments the few percentage points Minorities are lagging behind in jobs. Recently India's best known intellectual Arundhati Roy supported freedom for Kashmiris. In the end it turned out Kashmiris didn't want freedom.

Aside from the wealth accumulation issue (that can not be helped without overhauling the entire system and not anytime soon), much of the perception of job stealing by outsiders is mixing up cause and effect. The reason there are jobs in Maharashtra is why people go there in the first place. Certainly Marathis wouldn't want to swap for Orissa where no one goes (except missionaries)?

In India we want to eat the cake and have it too. When it comes to our own state, we want domicile quotas every which way we can. As soon as the matter relates to another state, suddenly we are gloriously Indians, cheerleaders for the LDR and great fans of cosmopolitan cities. Same thing when it comes to politics. When Congress applies Sachar, it is for social justice. But Raj Thackeray is not allowed to bat for poor Marathis.

The Train Connection

In the latest incident of anti-Hindustani violence by MNS, candidates from Bihar who were about to take the Maharashtra Railway Board entrance exam were severely beaten up. Reportedly one man was killed which triggered widespread violence in Bihar - public property was vandalized and one Maharashtrian was beaten up.

Well, it turns out that the man supposed to have been killed by MNS party workers had actually died in a train accident and they have CCTV footage to prove it. Now they tell us!

The incident happened at 7:30 AM. The man was brought to a hospital by railway staff. Which part of train accident was in doubt? Surely a man looks slightly different when run over by train as opposed to being beaten up by a mob? Yet somehow the rumor that an MNS mob had killed the boy reached Bihar and triggered violence.

From Babri Masjid (Advani was arrested by Laloo and confined in Bihar when the mosque was destroyed) to Godhra to this latest incident - every murky, sordid and controversial issue has Laloo's paw prints all over it. The man camps out in Gujarat, in Maharashtra. He is certainly entitled to as Railway minister. He also can't keep his hands out of the cookie jar of public money. Even the exam in question was for the railway services - who know if rules were being violated?

Shobhaa De mentions slogans written all over the walls in Mumbai saying, 'UP hamari hai, ab Maharashtra ki baari hai' (UP is ours, now for Maharahtra). Think poor migrant laborers thought it up by themselves? Special trains bringing in thousands for political rallies have added to the claustrophobia. Sometimes the trains bring in elements that would be undesirable anywhere, not just in Maharashtra. Why would Marathis put up with it?

Yet our intellectuals find Laloo's tomfoolery charming. They can't get enough of his rustic jokes.

Laloo is a living indictment to the dishonesty of the intellectuals in our country. We are letting men like him destroy the LDR bit by bit. Raj Thackeray and his company can not hold a candle to Laloo's disruptive presence in Indian politics and our intellectuals pretend not to see any of it.

Are we there yet?

So, the lunar probe got launched successfully. For the next few days we will not hear the end of it from various news channels. So, Singh is now King of the Universe! After becoming king of the world following the nuke deal.

Perhaps this was necessary. Who knows? But we know for sure the kind of articles that would be written had this happened during the NDA tenure.

Then again there is this minor matter, which the party of the aam aadmi was supposed to fix better than anyone else:

The war-ravaged countries of Serbia and Lithuania are better off. So are people in cold deserts of Mongolia. Tiny nations such as Surinam and Honduras have got a better handle on it and so have large diverse countries like China and Brazil. India, in comparison, is failing miserably to tackle hunger.

India ranks 66 out of 88 countries on the 2008 Global Hunger Index (GHI), far behind comparable developing countries as well as smaller, less diverse and resource deprived nations.

The index, released by the International Food Policy Research Institute on Tuesday, is bound to take the hype out of UPA's talk of inclusive growth, with a review of Indian states showing that economic progress witnessed in some states has not helped improve hunger and malnutrition levels. [link]

Joke

Rahul Gandhi wants to end dynasty politics.

Lipstick on a little girl ........

Eleven-year-old Nazmeen can barely speak. She suffered 99 per cent burn injuries after her neighbour set her on fire - all because she dared to wear lipstick.

Nazmeen was attacked by the man she called nana (grandfather). On Friday, Saleem told the little girl not to wear lipstick. When she defied him, in a fit of rage he allegedly molested her before pouring kerosene on her and setting her on fire. [link]

.. can be irksome to fundamentalist pigs.

The TOI story has a shocking twist.

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Heads I win .....