Pan-Islamism - Dying By Multiple Cuts!

Pan-Islamism and solidarity among all Islamic nations have long been a pipe dream throughout Islamic history. And this delusion carried itself further post-1950s as multiple nation-states that professes their allegiance to Islam were established. The Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) was established with a vision of forming a bloc of Islamic nations that stretches from Morocco to Southeast Asia that will counter the western, liberal influence on geopolitics. The reality is far different. There has never been pan-Muslim solidarity throughout the history of Islam. And the situation did not change at all despite the establishment of OIC. And given the competing priorities of some of the strong (and some delusional) Islamic nations, one can safely bet that such unity will continue to be a pipe dream. 

The Israel Question:

The issue of Israel is quite interesting here. It's been going on for so long that it's hard to remember what is it about, to begin with. But the issue did serve its purpose for multiple state actors for decades. Under the guise of fighting with Israel, various Islamic nations of middle-east attempted to either spread their influence or straight up gobble additional geographic areas. For this blog's scope, let's have in-scope only the Arab nations and Iran. That is, let's ignore the Islamic nations of southeast Asia, Africa, and Pakistan. Now, get ready for the whirlpool of competing priorities and messed-up histories! 

Saudi wants to assert itself as the vanguard of Islam. That means taking up every issue - real or imagined, related to Islam. Since Israel - a Jewish state is established literally at the heart of Islam's birthplace, Saudis have to fight against them. Since they are too lazy to fight, they outsourced it to Hamas. But the fight against Israel is rather secondary when it comes to priorities. The priority is to project Saudis are the only ones steadfastly fighting against Israel and as the only true friends of Palestine. That's the important objective. Because they do not want Persians (Iran) or Turkic (Turkey) influence to grow in their backyard. The conflicting ethnicities of these three nations are to be paid attention to here. 

This brings us to Iran - For Iranian theocracy to survive, they have to keep fighting the enemies of the state - real or imagined. These enemies are Israel and US. Since the US is too far for Iran to showcase any sort of 'fighting' spirit against, they have to make do with Israel. All the big and fervent rallies in Tehran aside, the reality is Iran does not possess any military capabilities to harm Israel. So Iran chooses the Saudi way of outsourcing the fight. They support Hizbollah - another terrorist organization. Iran funds them and asks them to die so that they can tell their domestic audience how Shia power is growing and how they are raining hellfire on the Jews. 

Since Saudis are Sunnis who hate Shias and Iran is Shias who hate Sunnis for Sunnis hating them, the fight between them, for all practical purposes, eternal. Hate each other more than they hate Israel! The cause is Israel and the battleground is Palestine, far far away from their lands. 

Now, Turkey is an interesting case here. They believe they are Europeans but they also think they ought to own pretty much the whole of middle-east since it once belonged to the Ottoman empire. And, also, most importantly, they believe all Islamic nations should bow to them since they were the last Caliphs. (The Caliphate was discontinued post-WW 1 by Britishers. For some reason, Gandhi in India decided to start a moment - the 'Khilafat' movement against this British decision. The so-called devoutly Hindu leader wanted to bring back the Caliphate, which will disfranchise Hindus as non-believers. But let's not digress here!) 

The only way Turkey can showcase their military chops, you guessed it right - is by going after Israel. For the record, modern-day Turkey was not like this for the last several decades. The emergence of Erdogan meant the emergence of the delusional self of Turkey. Now Turkey is not only meddling or trying to meddle with Israel but attempting to increase its sphere of influence in various theaters. They want to be an actor in Syria / Lebanon conflict. They are openly siding with Pakistan against India. They are trying to play a role in Azerbaijan - Armenia conflict. They are all over! But this is what happens when one gets free money and free armaments for years. Turkey has been one of the largest recipients of military aid from the US for decades. 

Turkey not only considers their identity as Caliphs of Islam, which puts them at odds with Saudi and Iran, but their Turkic ethnicity is increasingly becoming a focal point of its expansionist mindset. Turkey readily supporting Azarbaijan in a recent skirmish between Armenia and Azarbaijan is an indicator of this new worldview. 

Iran is Persian, a proud one at that. Saudis are Arabs, a proud one at that too. So, not only Turkey is fighting with Saudi Arabs and Irani Persians for a numero uno position in the Islamic world, both Irani and Saudis are worried about ethnic Turks overpowering them again as the Ottomans once did. All in all, it's an excruciatingly confusing theater of violent ethnic-nationalistic-Islamic secretariat conflict. 

This brings us back to the recent development of the UAE embracing Israel. For the last several decades this anti-Israel mindset had a great hold over the Islamic nation bloc's foreign policy. The first break in the rank was Egypt deciding to be diplomatic with Israel in 1979 and then Jordan following the course in 1994. However, for the next two decades, the so-called resistance in Palestine intensified further. Till the lull that happened in the mid-to-late part of the 2010s. As the realization that the Palestine issue is no longer critical to even Israel and the fact that Palestine is nothing but a pawn leveraged by external powers to serve their interests sets in, more Arab countries will join the bandwagon of being friends with Israel.  

However, this does not mean the state actors, the self-proclaimed vanguard of Islam, will stop their attempt to establish hegemony. That will continue. It will only need a new enemy. And the whole cycle will begin again. 

The Proverbial Marathi Manoos and Thakrey's Party (aka Shiv Sena)

It is nauseating to see Shiv Sena ('Thakrey party' henceforth!) spewing venom in the name of Marathi manoos again. I always been wary of this so called ideology. I am not from Mumbai, though I am as Marathi as one can get, this Marathi manoos philosophy gets hollower as you move away from Mumbai. And by the time you hit Nagpur - which is the second capital of Maharashtra, this Marathi Manoos thing is nothing but a drum that's already broken. But fortunately, this issue has lived its life and heading towards a quiet exit. That's because this political outfit isn't going to last long! 

I am extremely proud of Marathi language, Marathi history, Marathi culture and everything Marathi. I am privileged to be born in Marathi land, Marathi house and to Marathi family. It must have been punya-karma of my last birth that my mother tongue is Marathi and I thank my parents that they put me in Marathi 'medium' for my education. I know history of Maratha empire by heart, by dates, by battles fought, by battles won and lost. I can recite the poem on Shivaji Maharaj by Kavi Bhushan

"साजि चतुरंग सैन अंग में उमंग धरि
सरजा सिवाजी जंग जीतन चलत है"

And this is where this political 'ideology' is lost to me. You see, Kavi Bhushan was not a Marathi. In fact, if to go with the typical slur by Thakrey party then he was a 'Bhaiyya'. Now, what do we have to say about him in current circumstances? Do we kick him out of Maharashtra? Call him names? Tell world that he is taking jobs of Marathi poet? Even though he wrote his poems exalting greatness of Shivaji Maharaj in Braj-bhasha in current political situation, he will be kicked out for being a bhaiyya and for using non-Marathi language to talk about great Shivaji! 

The ideology or the confidence should be strong enough to assimilate and make non-Marathis into strong Marathis. Alas, that's a lot of work and who has time for that?

Thakrey party is a reactionary force, brought to birth with congress moneybags and meant only to keep commies at bay. To that objective, they have succeeded. At one point MH cultural and literary life had strong odor of communism and that stench could really have spread into political arena. Fortunately it did not since whatever small political space left by Congress was slowly taken over by Thakrey's. 

But the objective that was met, was of Congress's. Not of this so called Hindutva leaning party or ideology. In fact, Thakrey's party barely posed any serious political challenge to Congress. Even after Congress split right in the middle with formation of NCP. The seats that Thakrey's party won in 1995 when they formed first non-Congress state government in MH with the help of BJP - their highest, was in late 60s. Guess the number of seats they won in 2019 elections - late 50s. 

In today's world, Thakrey's party's stance was only to gain power. Nothing else. They attempted to create besieged feeling among Marathi masses to carve out political space. But that was very much limited to Mumbai and its immediate surroundings. Beyond that geography, the Marathi manoos talk never carried any weight or meaning. For that, they relied on Hindutva ideology. They were firebrand for sure, but again, it was only to serve their political purposes. MH is a fairly right-wing leaning state. Shivaji Maharaj still rules the hearts of masses, so even sonia's secularism infested Congress is decidedly Hindutva leaning. With anti non-Marathi stance and organizationally weak outside of MH to gain from their Hindutva brand means Thakrey's party not only remained a decidedly regional party but they largly  remained a local, Mumbai area-centric outfit.   

Thakrey's party and their thinking heads believe that harping on Marathi Manoos and creating controversy by beating this dead horse will help them survive. Not sure if this political maneuvering makes any sense.  It never gave them life to begin with, so, for that reactionary political plank to pay any dividend now is nothing but delusional. The proverbial Marathi manoos that Thakrey's party supposedly stood for has moved on long time ago. The results of last Bruhan Mumbai Municipal Elections (BMC) are a clear indication that this Marathi manoos now identifies itself more with a 'Gujju bhai' lead BJP. The voting share of Thakrey party in non-Mumbai areas of MH has at best remained stagnant and worse, have been completely devoured by BJP lead by Devendra Fadnavis's governance oriented personality. 

Another fun fact - despite Congress's massive reversals in political fortunes, the vote share of Thakrey party in 2019 MH assembly elections is barely a percentage more than Congress party!

This brings me to Rhea Chakraborty saga. There is no evidence of any connection between her and Thakrey party. At least, there should not be. But there is some life to this conjuncture. Otherwise, why would Tharkey's unofficial spokesperson and their mouthpiece has taken extraordinary steps to either divert the attention of the media and public away from this saga involving Rhea? And when it is apparent it is not working, why are they going ludicrous extent to somehow connect this to Mumbai pride and Marathi manoos? 

This is because, Thakrey party and Rhea are not that different. Talent less, morally bankrupt, and full of shady dealings. Somehow them being connected through either Sushant Singh Rajput's death or through money laundering or through drugs makes perfect sense. 

In any case, all this will quiet down post Bihar election and most importantly, post fall of Thakrey party MH government. People will move on and the sordid saga involving Rhea will be relegated to last pages of the news paper. And, this party of Thakrey's will join the long list of reactionary regional political outfit that ran the due course and went down without a bloop! 

The Temple!

The temple is getting built where it is supposed to.  There are at least few thousands such spots where temples should be standing but that's not the case because these temples were destroyed as an act of oppression, as an act of bigotry, as an act of suppression, as an attempt to destroy a civilization, as an attempt to destroy a culture, as an attempt of destroy a language, as an attempt to destroy a philosophy, as an attempt to impose fundamentalism, as an attempt to impose a foreign ideology that has no relation with this land, as an act of subjugation. 

Let there be no equivocation or political correctness about it. Let there be no debate over whether we should build a hospital or a school at that site. That whataboutery has wasted precious resources of our nation for decades and worse, made us double guess our faith, our tradition and our history. The truth alone has prevailed but not without sacrifice of lakhs and not without absolute faith of crores. 

Now on to Kashi and Mathura!

Deja' Vu (aka the Congress Drama!)

The soft mutiny by Sachin Pilot has taken national media's attention away from China. For now. China will be back soon, and so will the long due conflict with them. But currently the spicy family drama of Congress is unfolding in full public view. The narrative in media and even among some of the BJP supporters is, how Congress is again sticking to Gandhi's and ready to let go of their young talent. On how smug the Gandhis are that even in this day and age, a person like Sachin Pilot who is an MLA and deputy Chief Minister biggest state (in terms of area) of country cannot get their appointment. How Sachin Pilot single-handedly revived Congress in RJ and wrested power from BJP in last assembly elections. And for some reason how Amit Shah and Modi is killing democracy because they are allowing Congress to implode internally! Ok. I am not going to answer the last question. I cannot stoop that low. That's Ramchandra Guha territory.

Congress is not a political party. It was a family business since independence and for last two decade it has become a mafia business. Congressi's have always stuck with Gandhis. Always! Except for communists and Jan Sangh / BJP, pretty much all parties are splinters of Congress. And these off shoots splintered because they challenged Gandhi's. In short, this drama of today is not new. Second, Congress hasn't had young talents in decade now. Sachin Pilot is 42. That's not young by any parameter. Scindia Jr. is 49! Suffice to say, Congress is not letting go of any 'young' talent. Third, Gandhis never grant easy access. The book 'Durbar' by Tavleen Singh tell us how Gandhi's governed their fiefdom through exclusivity of access to them. Whether it's a politician or a businessman or a journalist, you doing things for them will grant you access and that in turn means, you do more things for them. Amazing!  But it worked for last two decades now. It should be a psychology case study.

Lastly, the talk about how Pilot won the elections for Congress in 2018 Rajasthan Assembly elections is unicorns running on rainbows level hallucination. Yes, he did work at grass root level. But For last twenty years Rajasthan have voted alternatively for BJP or Congress. And the voters did this by giving each party an overwhelming majority. The result was like a clock work. Given BJP had won rather massively in 2013, potential for Congress winning in 2018 was quite high regardless. And that's precisely what happened. Congress did not get absolute majority, so, one can argue that the advantage Congress got was because of Sachin Pilot's work. And perhaps, that's true but let's not get carried away here by saying Sachin Pilot revived Congress.

All this brings me to the point that has been bothering me since unfolding of this drama. Pilot isn't waging any holy war against dynasty rule in Congress. He himself is a classic case of a dynasty. His father was a political heavyweight in Congress before losing out to Sonia Gandhi. He doesn't have much presence beyond Rajasthan, as in, he has no national stature. He enjoyed the fruits of sucking up to Gandhis all along. Now that he is unable to cage his ambition of becoming CM of the state, he is revolting. That's the simple reality. Nothing wrong in what he is doing. This is politics after all. But it's jarring to see him getting painted heroic.

I don't know which Pilot will go. He is unlikely to find much warmth in BJP. Scindia's case was different because rest of his family, except for him and his late father, has been backbone of Jan Sangh and BJP. Pilot's not the same case. I say BJP shouldn't take him onboard. RJ will come their way in three years anyway. Why take on a person who may harbor hatred towards Hindutva and towards BJP? Let him set up a regional shop. He will eat into Congress share to begin with.

Congress party is already pretty thin when it comes to state leadership. But rest assured whichever way Pilot decides to chart his way, this kind of drama will repeat in Congress again and again till only three of Gandhis remain in the party. 

The Guns of UP and Woke Liberals

The recent killing of Vikas Dubey - a criminal par excellence, during an encounter has sent India's new age secularists, old fart liberals and Uttar Pradesh's opposition parties into a fit. It's hard to imagine that a person like Vikas Dubey's death can have any voice supporting him. It's time to celebrate actually. He was not just a career criminal but his connections in political parties means he was virtually untouchable from law perspective. So, in his death, why would he find new set of supporters? Especially when his own father is not planning to take his body from cops for last rites.

Let's first draw boundaries for our argument here. I don't plan to write about why SP, BSP or "I am grand daughter of my grand mother" fame madame 420, are saying what they are saying. I am not planning to counter the new age secularists who are suddenly feeling woke to Vikas Dubey's caste.

This brings me to old fart liberals. This specie is unique in every possible sense. They are highly insecure, to be begin with. Their arguments for the sake of liberalism lacks practicality, reality and most importantly, truth of the matter. They want to speak for the rights of perpetrators while happily ignoring rights and feelings of the victims. Though most of these folks are honest fools, in India at least, a good chunk of 'liberal' public figures have put themselves 'On Sale'. These special specie class includes movie celebrities, so called NGO activists, so called journalists and most importantly, lawyers. It's easy to dismiss them as shrill nuisance. But during UPA II era, they have firmly entrenched themselves within judiciary. That's why you see their PILs getting listed in SC pronto. The process that has evolved over last decade is like this -  a controversy is fanned into a national emergency by 'liberal' media. Then right on cue, a 'liberal' lawyer will straight go to Supreme Court of India to file a case. It may be a stay, or a request to transfer case out of said State's jurisdiction or perhaps, to set up a SC monitored investigation. But worse is yet to come. Our honorable Supreme Court actually used to take cognizance of such frivolous matter on urgent basis. For example, Yakub Menon got hearing midnight when lakhs of people don't even get their matter listed in SC for years. Another classic example is Teesta Setalvad getting bail when SC judges decided to hear her plea over PHONE on a weekend!

Coming back to our topic in hand, what all this eco-system had to do with Vikas Dubey? They were all hoping either Vikas Dubey not to get caught ever - thus they will probably go to court to haul UP  govt (read Yogi Adityanath!) in courts and request a court mandated and monitored investigation to look into UP govt. hiding or helping Vikas Dubey. Or if Vikas Dubey is to get caught then first, ensure he gets bail and second, his case gets transferred out of UP so that they can prolong it for decades. In short, Vikas Dubey becomes a stick to needle Yogi Adityanath and BJP constantly. This would be punishment for Yogi ji for ensuring law order remains strong during Shaheen bagh bullshit. These so called liberals managed to execute on this plan by making a massive firestorm controversy over encounter of Prajapati (a known underworld Don) and of Ishrat Jahan (a supposedly innocent girl, happen to be travelling with 5 dreaded LeT islamic terrorists.). Modi and Shah had to face agni-pariksha for executing on their duties for almost a decade. It's an entirely different matter that this ploy, though worked in short term, lead to downfall of the very dynasty that fed them.

One thing these 'liberals' did not take into account in there calculation is the person they are dealing with. Modi-Shah were only CM then. The BJP central leadership wasn't necessarily tuned to the agenda and schemes of these liberals. So, Modi had to fight it alone. In Yogi ji's case not only the central leadership strongly standing behind Yogi ji, the man himself is exceptionally clear in his talks and actions. Just like Modi, Yogi ji has no family to feed and no money to make for anyone. All he is expected to do is the govern the way government is supposed to do.

All the liberals shouting hoarse of death of judiciary because of Vikas Dubey's encounter, never realize that justice was never alive when Vikas Dubey was roaming free. Yogi ji understands this clearly. Perhaps, he could have interrogated if he was to alive. But what happened when a dreaded criminal is arrested in the past? Did it lead to further arrests? Classic case is of Abdul Telgi. (Stamp paper scam) Didn't he testify? Didn't he spilled the beans? Didn't he named the politicians? Did anyone ever got arrested? And, Where is Abdul Telgi?

Indian judiciary is littered with such case. Where convicts never faced prison and people that should be convicted never even got accused. What is one supposed to do under such circumstances? Here we have a dreaded criminal who killed 8 police in cold blood and then cut fingers and head of the constable who lead the police search party. And then there is a whole 'woke' 'liberal' agenda-driven eco-system of Mumbai and Delhi ready and waiting not only to rescue the criminal but then use it to stick it to the govt?

I wish Vikas Dubey was alive in jail. I wish he had confessed for his crimes and named the names. I wish the names were put in jail and put on trial and most importantly, convicted. But till the point such time comes, Vikas Dubey's of this world had to be dealt with per the demands of current circumstances.

  

Cheeni Kam

Growing up, we never called China as Chaay-na. It was always Cheeen. In Marathi, the name is still written that way only. World, in general, would do better if we have little less of Cheen-i in our life. The Covid havoc Cheen-i has unleashed on world is unprecedented in recent memory. And if that wasn't enough then Cheen is attempting to inflict more pain on the countries that are in a geographically unfortunate situation of being their neighbor. The strategy Cheen-i leadership have adopted since last couple of months is not only surprising but frankly, delusional and self-destructive. Pressure, power and threat rarely work together for long period of time against one country and it definitely will not work if employed against multiple countries, at the same time!

China is currently simultaneously engaged in hostile stand-off with India in Ladakh region, with Taiwan in, well, all of Taiwan region, with Japan in East China sea, with Vietnam and Philippines in South China Sea. They are also attempting to subdue Hong Kong using strong arm tactics. The moves seems calculated to a certain extent. Which to be honest is quite impressive since only the strongest nations in history have managed to compartmentalized their foreign affairs and deal with multiple parties - hostile and friendly, simultaneously. China already considers itself a super-power and perhaps, this is their way to show the world that they have arrived.

But achieving hegemony requires time and patience. And if history (emergence of British hegemony or American hegemony in last 150 odd years) is any precursor then little bit of luck as well. China is showing no patience and them spreading corona virus isn't the lucky break they are hoping for. America is still the numero uno military power in the world. And while one can argue that China is number two, the chasm between #1 and #2 is so vast that one may even say that there is no competition. Moreover, other nations are fast catching up with China as well. In short, below the deck of American military hegemony, world is a multilateral. And the status quo is not changing anytime soon.

Forget about world dominance, even China's immidiate neighbors are no pushovers. Indian military is battle hardened and technological fairly advanced. Japan is heavily militarizing in last one decade. South Korea is also a strong military nation. Vietnam, Philippines and other South-East Asian nations have also armed themselves to the extent they can. These countries are fairly stable politically as well.

Then why is China picking up fights on all fronts? As I said before, perhaps, they think now is the time to shine bright and arrive on the world stage as a super power. If this is the case then we are in more trouble since they would want to start a war with someone to showcase their military strength and worse, win the war. Given that they simply do not care about human life -their own or for others, the war will have to be won at any cost. That means more destruction and loss of human life.

Or, perhaps, they think world is not going to react to their mischief and they get to push the envelope further than before without getting penalized. They are the greatest land grabbers since '13 colony' United States of America. Their policy towards neighbors is to grab land whenever they can and constantly pushing to grab more land from the neighbors. Chinese simply unable to stop from claiming literally EVERYTHING!

I believe that it's likely to be second option. Chinese leadership is delusional for sure but I believe they still understand limits of their power and strength. But by regularly poking fingers into neighbors, proverbial, butts, they get to test their own strength as well as their neighbors. They can test neighboring nations' leadership, resoluteness and political, social and military readiness. And in this process if they can grab few hundred square km land then that's icing on the cake.

Another aspect behind these shenanigans is to divert withering attention away Chinese virus aka corona virus.  Chinese leadership knows that their worldwide popularity, despite 'investing' heavily into foreign nations academia and in journalists / press of foreign nations, is all time low. They are aware that such disenchantment can lead to policy decisions that can have negative impact on Chinese economy. For example, anti-China rhetoric in India has led to cancellation of multi billion dollar infrastructure projects awarded to Chinese construction companies. Now, to be honest, the impact of such measures is less than negligible to Chinese economy but avalanche always start slow.

However, notwithstanding the short term cost, I believe the neighboring nation should play this game resolutely and teach some bloody lesson to Chinese. I know it's easy for me to be keyboard warrior than to be in Ladakh right now. But the reality is backing down right now may save few lives (which is a worthy cause - every soldier's life matter!) but will lead to hundreds of more lives lost in near future. Because these communist Chinese are new scourge on earth and they will not stop unless forcefully stopped.