Manmohan's Legacy

Discussing legacy is a tricky proposition. It is even harder when the past is still very recent and fresh. The nuances are obviously the first casualty but more than that, the emotions are still so raw that any analysis loses objectivity. In case of Manmohan though the dice on his legacy was cast the very moment he chose to accept his ‘selection’ as a PM of India. His term as a PM has still few days left but the narrative has long reached the conclusion.

By far and large Manmohan is usually considered as a clean and non-corrupt person. After Vajapayee, he may be the cleanest PM of India. The recently published book on Manmohan steadfastly holds the notion of him being absolutely non-corruptible. He has never received any bribes or monetary favors for himself or for his family and that he takes immense pride at it. Substantial majority in India also buys into this narrative. To be honest, I find that belief silly. The UPA regime has birthed scams of such a staggering scale that people like to take solace by saying at least our Prime Minister was not corrupt. It is as if Manmohan is a lotus flower amidst wretched sycophants of congress party. Though calling him a lotus flower is quite funny in current politically charged environment.

I think Manmohan is a vile old man who is morally and ethically corrupt. He is immoral because allegiance was to Sonia rather than to our nation. And he is unethical because in spite of knowing the rampant corruption that was happening under his watch, he refused to stop the corrupt or at worse, resign for his failure. A lifelong congress crony, his zeal to protect Sonia was his undoing and electing him twice was India’s.

When Sonia selected him as our PM, Manmohan clearly knew what he was getting into It was a master stroke on her part. Manmohan had a clean image and he was mostly a non-controversial figure. The regional parties could sell Manmohan to their constituencies easily and then could flock for an alliance with Congress. And that’s exactly what happened. Perhaps, Manmohan should not have agreed for this situation. If successful he, at best, was keeping seat warm for Rahul Gandhi or at worse, he would be a scapegoat for the Party’s failure. He knew that but he still opted for him. So his non-corruptibility is irrelevant. He was hungry for the power and decided to be the Prime Minister. Then, how can he not be blamed for all the despicable scandals that happened under his watch?

Ethics and morality are slippery concepts. But at root level, it is about setting self-imposed standards to abide by. Manmohan should have done scenario analysis and stress testing before accepting the Prime Ministership. That would have helped him in drawing a moral and ethical framework for himself.  For example, what would I do if a bill that I feel is good for the country is rejected by Sonia? Or as an economist, would I commit hundreds of billions of rupees that do not exist to a social reform package just because Sonia wants it? How much corruption would I tolerate and where do I draw the line and resign? Do I work for the country or Sonia? One can argue that his personal incorruptibility was his moral and ethical framework but being in a public serving environment his framework should include what he would do when people around him, people who work for him are to become corrupt.  I don’t think Manmohan did that. He did not take any measures to check unsavory activities within the government and limit the interference / influence of ex-constitutional authorities like NAC. So his personal non-corruptibility framework is not only inadequate but in fact, highly unethical. He may not have taken bribes for himself or for his family but he is corrupt in every other sense.

I keep asking myself, why didn’t he resign? His inabilities as politician are quite evident but any sane individual would say ‘f&*k this s^&t, I am leaving’.  Actually, he did use his ‘resignation’ weapon, as per Sanjay Baru’s book, during Nuclear Deal sign-off saga. The party and Sonia were not for the deal but Manmohan had already personally promised the deal to Obama and US. In this intra-party, intra-government stand-off Manmohan came out on the top in spite of intervention from Sonia. They obviously couldn’t afford his resignation. So the deal was signed. Alas, that was the extent of Manmohan standing up for something, being in charge. He went back to being a mute spectator after that.

There is an underlying reason as to why Manmohan acted the way he did. I touched this point briefly in the beginning. Manmohan wasn’t working for our country. He was working for Sonia. His allegiance was towards Gandhi family, not towards India. He was more worried about keeping Gandhi family intact than work towards betterment of India. That means him resigning would have endangered Gandhi family’s hold on power. Manmohan couldn’t possibly allow that; our nation be damned.

What kind of legacy Manmohan leaves? A not so great one, to say the least. Manmohan is nothing but a power-hungry, Gandhi family sycophant who presided over numerous scams and number of ghastly terrorist attacks; a morally corrupt and highly unethical individual who demoralized not just the government mechanism but also our armed forces. He and his government have left their incompetent and corrupt fingerprints on every facet of country. No one will remember A. Raja or Kalmadi, history will remember this as a Manmohan government. And as if this wasn’t enough then he will always be remembered as a person who handed baton to Rahul Gandhi. Yep, the tragedy just continues. 

Modi Tsunami? (Part II)

My last blog kind of left few things hanging. There were some obvious questions and rejoinders to be added. If Congress and Soniagress are so shrewd then how come they do not dismantle Modi for challenging them? What is the source of his power? And what’s next?

Before I dive in, let me reiterate. All this pravachan is with confidence that Modi will win this election handsomely and become next PM. If he doesn’t for whatever reason, voter fraud, voting machine fraud etc., then, well, we are in trouble.

The central government lead by Congress party approached the Modi ‘problem’ with two pronged strategy. One was to entangle him riots, fake encounter or some other flimsy legal case. Second, was to hammer him down through media. I am sure there must be a lot more that was going on behind the scene. For example, the recent Sunday Guardian article shed light on nefarious activities purported by Hillary Clinton as the foreign minister of U.S. She tasked NGO from Nordic countries to find mass graves of Gujarat riots. Even if a single bone was to be found, she was ready lodge a complaint to UN and put sanctions on India. And the article further mentions that this task was done with active help of couple of central ministers and it further insinuates that Sonia was supporting this clandestine mission. Apart from a hilarious instance where the search party mistook buffalo bones for human ones and prematurely celebrated, they did not find anything. And, that’s because there was actually nothing.  Even the Special Task Force Investigation (STI) appointed and governed by Supreme Court of India did not find any wrongdoing on Modi’s part in Gujarat riots. So from siding with anti-national forces to cajoling Supreme Court into action, the government led by Congress and Soniagress left no stone unturned on countering Modi through legal system.

Then they tried their best in attacking Modi through media. The relentless scrutiny of print and digital media on Gujarat and Modi was numbing. These people all but convicted Modi of crime against humanity. The media onslaught, they thought, would impact electoral success that Modi was enjoying. Nothing worked because there is a crucial difference between Modi and the Delhi ‘lutyenites’ as Tavleen Singh calls them. Modi has a very big mass base. He is not in power because favors are thrown at him by ‘high-command’. He has earned it – through his development, through his oration, through shrewd political moves - he kept connecting with people. In democracy people’s support tantamounts to having a combo of  Karna’s kavach-kundal and Arjuna’s Indra-astra. Pretty awesome I would say!  He keeps getting elected by people of Gujarat and his shrewd marketing tactics means he has loyal and vociferous supporters outside of Gujarat.

A more nuanced point to note - Since he did this on his own, apart from gratitude, he doesn’t owe any favors (or money!) to anyone. That obviously saves him a lot of time, which to his credit; he ably uses to make further development

There is another source of power. And that is his clean image. He does not have a single corruption charge against him. In fact, there is not even a single accusation against him. Even the fertile mind of Kejariwal couldn’t conjure anything. The best he had was the supposed cozy relationship between Adani and Modi. Of course, it’s altogether different matter that the land dealings of Modi were praised by the Supreme Court. Truth stands no chance against Kerajriwal! In this day and age where the scams have reached astronomical amounts, it is hard to find a clean politician with enough power to reach the PM post. His ‘wife’ lives on her own and Modi’s siblings make their money through jobs, that is, they own no businesses.

I hear the recently published book of Manmohan’s media advisor is quite illuminating in this regard. I haven’t had opportunity to read the book as yet but the reviews make it clear that Manmohan was systematically made redundant by Sonia and her ilk. Whatever power he had was mostly used towards placating government’s allies. The Congress, its ministers, politicians and all the leeches on it formed a kind of eco system that served them well, nation be damned. Especially after an unexpected victory in 2009, these people completely forgot that they are in Delhi to serve the people. They were busy fighting each-other and to curry more favors from Sonia. Pretty much all of them completely lost the track of Modi who was positioning himself for Delhi. They thought raking up Gujarat riots would be enough but unfortunately for them (and fortunately for us!), the dam wasn’t good enough for a tsunami.

And, this tsunami is about to wash off the shady, underworld-esque, sycophant, arrogant, power-drunk, corrupt, incompetent, nepotism and anti-national Congress government of Delhi

Modi Tsunami?

The elections are in full swing and the opinion polls are suggesting resounding victory for Modi and BJP. I personally do feel that BJP will get closer to 250 on its own. But this is not a math calculation. And, feelings have no value. Because if that was the case then Congress, with their listless, powerless, incompetent, morally and ethically corrupt PM (i.e. our dear Manmohan), would not have won the 2004 and 2009 election. In both of those elections opinion polls had suggested strong BJP current which was completely absent from the poll results! 

I hope the history does not repeat itself this time.

Election time usually time also brings the political vitriol to the surface. I think most of this criticism and back and forth of accusation is a staged drama. Especially in last couple of decades when the corruption went through the roof, you need to work with politicians / ministers from all parties to ensure one, you can continue the corrupt ways and second, to not to get caught. But at the same time to maintain the visage of political fight these politicians ‘fight’ with each other in front of crowd. It’s all good, except for the corruption of course. It is a good thing they fight only with accusation rather than guns. But this election is different. The hatred and contempt thrown Modi’s way is real. Politicians from across the country, save for the NDA allies, have pointed their guns towards one person. All these people, especially the ‘Soniagress’, genuinely hate Modi ji. One get the feeling that per these stooges Modi has no right to contest national elections. When Sonia says that Modi and BJP will destroy the ‘Hindustaniyat’, she means that. And in a way this is true too. Of course, her definition of ‘Bharatiyata’ is little different. I think she thinks true Bharatiyata is Bharatiya being slave of her.

Forget about 2002 riots, even if hadn’t happened, the opposition to Modi would have been equally strong. This is because he is sure to destabilize the coterie of Delhi, assiduously build by Congressites over last 60 odd years. And he will impact the Congress culture in two ways – power and money.

The cliché that power is money is true only certain extent. In Delhi, Congress cultivates power for survival. The equation works this way – hold on to the power at any cost and money –tons and tons of it, will follow. And, there is a time tested formula to get this equation right. In this power pyramid Gandhi family sits at the top, always. The source of money flows to them and power emanates from them. The power game becomes a game unto itself since serving people or nation takes the back-seat. As long as you are committed to keeping Gandhis in power, you shall prosper. This model is similar to Mughal structure. And just like Mughal Sultans would venture out to take ‘care’ of rebel appointees, Gandhis either sidelined or worse, killed the local appointees who gained too much power. (Rajesh Pilot, Sindia, YSR?) Moreover, the regional power brokers such as DMK et. Al also had to stay within their state borders. The Gandhis ensured that regional politician do not threaten their standing in Delhi. The Delhi was untouchable. Either they will rule it directly or in rare instances, their appointees would be put up as rag dolls. Another important tactic they succeeded in was handling the so called elites – media as well as social, within Delhi. They ably managed the media, the academics and so called ‘thinkers’ in Delhi through favors (inam!) and other such means.

Barring the era of P.V. Narsimharao government, this power structure remained intact. Even Vajapyee government couldn’t dent it. And then of course during the era of our ‘great’ Manmohan government, the la familia regained whatever power it had lost and then some. The generation of Congress politicians who owe their existence to the bread crumbs from Gandhi family now has their second generation in motion. The second generation obviously is more submissive to the Gandhi family than their elders. The cycle continues.

The hold of la familia can still be debated because power in and in itself is hard to quantify. But corruption is very apparent and dollar value can be put on the scandals. This is where the second act of Congressites regales in full glory. The corruption even by Congress’s standards has broken all records in last ten years. And if one looks closely then the actors in these biggest scandals includes not only the Congress ministers but also regional politicians. The ‘wealth’ so to speak is being distributed among the lesser actors. This may be because Congress had to share the illicit money to stay in the power or perhaps because scams were of such staggering proportions that they couldn’t possibly gobble it alone. In any case the allies as well as Congressites established a very successful business model of siphoning billions of dollars out of India. The power was still with Gandhis but the fruits were shared with everyone. For this business model to work staying in the power was paramount. No matter what the cost is, they have to literally rule Delhi.

And then there is Modi!

For last ten years Congress’s power over Delhi was absolute. The so called opposition i.e. BJP was either lost or silent. Congress did as it pleases as if the throwback era of Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi. But this year’s electoral change is not a merely change in winds but a potential tsunami that will wash off all the dirt that Congress has built in Delhi.

Let’s hope that tsunami actually materializes.

The Political Start-Up - AAP

Election is on everyone's mind. Whether one likes Modi or not, the undeniable truth is that his candidacy has forced millions of people to think or talk about up-coming election. It's an achievement in itself. One more factor that briefly threatened to make this election more interesting is emergence of Kejariwal and his Aam Aadami Party. Him winning Delhi election was a watershed moment and should rightly be celebrated as epitome of our democratic process. People voted for change, people voted for honesty and in the process, voters also slapped the entrenched political establishment. Though I am a Modi supporter (just in case it was apparent from my prior blogs!), I respected Kejariwal and hoped for his continuing success. But it proved to be a mirage. The ensuing events after Kejariwal becoming CM of Delhi were both unexpected and unfortunate. Instead of building on electoral success, Kejariwal actively undermined himself and opted to go short on himself. Kejariwal worked hard and relentlessly in his beliefs and I thought, he could achieve so much more. I already ranted about Kejariwal in my prior blog. No need to add more to it. But I couldn’t help myself from dwelling on opportunity lost.

I had extensive discussion on the topic of Kejariwal and AAP with a colleague of mine. Needless to say he is a staunch AAP supporter and he presented some valid points. It made me rethink about AAP and Kejariwal for couple of days but at the end it actually increased my resentment and disappointment for Kejariwal. My colleague made following points:

• AAP is a start-up. The corruption has completely gone out of hands in India. People have just accepted corrupt and immoral activities as a new norm. AAP raises voice against it. In theory the party does give hope and strength to take a stand against status quo. 
• AAP is not based on the caste, religion or regional politics. The party is concerned about making lives better by holding politicians and bureaucrats to honest and moral standards. 
• AAP is a credible and positive counter-force to current crop of political parties that are deeply entrenched in Delhi circle.  
• He understands that AAP is a no-show in this election but he is investing in AAP – a start-up with a hope that they will grow and pay good dividends to the electorate in next five years or so.   

Though I would think Modi ji also as a positive force that is about to destabilize the Delhi culture, all in all, I agree with my friend here. It’s a unique perspective that takes the long view of this moment. It also somewhat lessens the pain of watching Kejariwal faltering in this election. Discussions aside, the reality is quite different though. Even if we consider AAP as a start-up then the ideas or ‘products’ they are putting on the table are already not resonating with its customers i.e. with voters. And without new voters i.e. without fresh capital, this start-up will fold within next five years. 

I think Kejariwal and AAP made couple of strategic mistakes after their grand show in Delhi assembly elections. And it is bound to affect survival of this start-up. 

• Kejariwal should have continued with his stint as a CM in Delhi. His antics and all, he showed his ineptness in governing a polity. He says he left the post for his ideals, for what he stands for. But if that is the case then he shouldn’t have joined the politics and stayed on course with Anna. Politics, apart from Ram-Rajya era, is another word for compromise. But a true good politician stays on course and ultimately achieves what he set for. The problems with Lokpal or with Delhi police or the interference of central government in Delhi government are not new. If he had shown that he could govern ably in spite of these issues then it would have shown to the voters that one doesn’t need to be corrupt to govern.

• The second blunder, the biggest one in that, was to target Modi on a national level. Perhaps, he thought since Congress is going to lose this national election badly, his political opponent is Modi. But there are couple of inherent fault in this thinking. One, Congress was in power in Delhi for last ten years. Those ten years are littered with staggering level of corruption. People are fed-up with Congress lead scandals, lack of leadership and price rise. In short, voters are angry at Congress, not at Modi. I am not saying BJP doesn’t have corrupt politicians in its fold, they do but the fact is that under Modi, Gujrat has progressed quite a bit and he has provided stable and decisive leadership. And most importantly there is not a single corruption charge against Modi! The strategy to target Modi instead of further chipping away Congress voters by going after Rahul or Sonia or for that matter, Shiela Dixit is proving to be a grand failure.

Doing political mistakes is okay, any new entrant has a learning curve. But with his antics, Kejariwal has a very short rope to climb out of mess. I don’t think voters will be affording many chances to him. The sad part is, now that he has jumped into politics, he cannot go back to being an activist. Not only we lost an honest and effective activist but in the process, we did not even gain a honest politician either! 

Mumbai Carnage Of 2008 - A Look Back

I have compiled few articles as well as videos that illustrate media's
perception towards Mumbai carnage. The media has uncontested power in
capturing the history through yellow lens of biased attitude, vested
interest as well as misinformation. Unfortunately, long after the
survivors, the victims and the preparatory are gone, it is the
imprints that media chooses to leave that will shape the history.
Earlier it used to the winners to write the history. In modern times
no matter who wins the contest, the only winner that emerges is the
media.

1) The New York Times doesn't have brightest brains to cover India.
They have only couple of dedicated writers who routinely cover India
related news and Somini Sengupta happens to be the most printed
journalist from India. After getting the late start in picking up
events in Mumbai, Somini Sengupta came up with this 'brilliant'
article where she clearly demonstrates that the political fighting that ensued
post-Mumbai carnage is all fault of 'Hindu nationalist' B.J.P. and
specially of Mr. Narendra Modi – 'arguably India's most incendiary
politician. (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/29/world/asia/29india.html)

       She later quotes Mr. Yogendra Yadav  - guy with no known
qualification in statistics as well as proven record of predicting

wrong election results (Gujarat Elections, M.P. Rajasthan and Zarkhand

election as well as 2004 Central elections)  - according to whom
terrorism ranks lowest as decisive factor in the elections. In short,
all though BJP is trying to win votes over this incidence (and
Congress, the party happens to be in power is not) the Congress should
win the elections.

 Increasingly New York Times is hell bent on projecting the terrorist
attack as a fall-out of Kashmir issue as well as 'poor' treatment that
Muslim receives in India. It can't be mere coincidence that the pitch
that Muslim leaders as well as their 'secular' savior make finds its
echo into respected foreign media.

2) To my surprise in the same newspaper William Kristol wrote a sane
commentary on the behavior of 'pinko-leftists' among foreign media.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/01/opinion/01kristol.html?_r=1&emc=eta1


3) Take a look at this moron Shekhar Gupta - Editor in Chief of
national daily.  All though this interview was conducted long time
before Mumbai carnage, the questions that Shekhar Gupta asks astounds
any sane personality. Perhaps this kind of thinking line permeates not
only the press but also the political class. Unfortunately it is the
common man that bores the brunt of stupidity of so called
'intelligentsia'.

My favorite questions are "But why is your state a major victim? Is
it because Gujarat is next door? And • Do you think Maharashtra is
paying a price for being Gujarat's neighbor? The questions were in
regards with prior bomb-blasts that shook Mumbai.
(http://www.indianexpress.com/news/it-a-breakthrough-is-expected-as-early-as-possible.-i-cant-say-whe.../8691/)


4)  Our 'celebrated' journalist Barkha Dutta failed to recognize why
there is anything wrong in seeing Pakistani flags flying high in
Muslim communities in Mumbai
http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/video/video.aspx?id=45735


5) But all is not lost. Some of the articles, especially from Wall
Street Journal were of highest standard and presented the actual
picture from the ground.  Following article that chronicles this
macabre drama should be a 'must' read for all Indians.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122809281744967855.html?mod=todays_us_nonsub_page_one
(p.s. I am also attaching word file of this article)

As media frenzy reached its nadir the news networks were running out
of experts. Bright brains in CNN thought that Deepak Chopra would be a
good person to talk to about this incidence. Of course, Mr. Chopra
ever ready to let his steam off on TV at every given chance was at his
best in making mess out of an already messed up situation. WSJ printed
a well written, humorous and sarcastic opinions piece on Mr. Chopra's
appearance.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122809544395968075.html

Some of the good articles published by Indian media are as follows -:

M. J. Akbar – Editor in Chief of Asian Age, succinctly captured the
whole situation and provided glimpse of sanity in Indian media.
http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/dec/02mumterror-pakistan-will-have-to-pay-a-heavy-price.htm

Same thing with Swapan Dasgupta in Forbes
http://www.forbes.com/2008/11/28/mumbai-terrorist-manmohan-oped-cx_sd_1128dasgupta.html?feed=rss_news

It was surprising to see good commentary of current issue getting
published in Cricinfo. But kudos to them that they managed to capture
the reality as it is instead of getting polarized.
http://content-usa.cricinfo.com/magazine/content/current/story/380239.html
-----Gideon Heigh

I will  also request readers to regularly visit Mr. B. Raman's blog
http://ramansterrorismanalysis.blogspot.com/2008/11/indias-day-of-infamy.html

Running Out of Ropes to Climb?

I recently started reading Gurucharan Das’s “India Grows At night”. I am yet to finish the book but I am sure it will certainly be a great read. The basic premise of the book is this: India’s growth in last couple of decades is potentially reaching its end point. The growth happened in spite of weak, corrupt and generally incompetent government and unless the situation with governance changes in near future we will be staring at not-so-bright future. Mr. Das is much more positive and optimistic in his assertions that my previous sentence suggest but we are really running out ropes to climb. 

I recently moved to India and I see how things are stretched to the limit. The government is responding at certain levels. Roads are getting built and fly-overs are taking shape but it’s coming too late and too little. The population is growing so fast, in spite of fall in birth rate, and government is miserably failing to meet even the basic needs.  The thing is that in old days government not functioning was given and it didn’t affect the normal life as much since there were few opportunities and there wasn’t a sense of how much potential we have. But people have understood the potential. Small set of population has done exceedingly well in last ten years. The money was made in honest business (construction, services, entrepreneurship, land etc.) and the money is very apparent. And I am not even talking about folks who drive Audis and BMWs. The upper middle class and the middle class are having a lot more luxurious life than what was possible  twenty years ago. The foreign trips to Sri Lanka and South-East Asia are very common and having multiple maids at home to take care is a norm. And I think those are all good signs. The money in most such cases is made honestly and is results of hard work. These people have shown appetite for opportunity and jumped on it. But there is still a large majority left in lurch and to bring these millions of people to a respectable living condition (i.e. way above the BPL level that government insist on referring to when it comes to talking about poverty)we need healthy government functioning competently.

The middle class and upper middle class that is enjoying the fruits of liberal economic policy made their money in spite of government. The money is either coming from US through BPO or hybrid outsourcing model or money is made by driving on bad roads, facing power shortage and running around in the maze of unlimited bureaucracy. The airports are congested, the railways are overflowing and large scale industrialization plans are hidden away on environment minister’s desk. The inflation is sky rocketing beyond imagination and comprehension.  Given these issues continue to not only persist but developments have been very slow, how far can middle class can go without hitting the wall?

But I think even after hitting the wall they will survive. They are better educated and there will always be some or other opportunity for them as India will be forced to integrate with world economy. It is the poor that I am worried about. It is the maids and paper-boys, the cleaning ladies and her children that are of most concern. 

For example, more than 80% of road projects are well behind their schedule and planning commission has admitted that port development projects in last planning commission period will not be completed on time. How does it affect poor? As per the  World Economic Forum in its 2011 report on infrastructure, 163 people are lifted out of poverty for every million dollars spent on road development.

Primary education should be the gravest of concerns for next Indian government. The private sector is proliferating at a staggering rate since majority of the public schools i.e. government run schools are in shambles. The private schooling is very expensive for majority of the people. In any case, providing quality education at a very reasonable rate is one of the basic duties of any government. Education shouldn’t be a privilege; it should be a fundamental right. Yet our government has failed miserably. The teachers are either absent or not hired or worse, untrained. This reflects in student’s passing percentage. Only 42% students passed the Math exams in class 8^th in government schools.  In 2012 only 30% of Standard 3^rd students could read Standard 1^st text. Such grim statistics are many.

Similar situation is in public health sector. As per KPMG research the infant mortality in India is 52 per 1000 births. To give the readers more perspective the same statistics stands at 18 per 1000 births in China. Hospital bed density is 9 in India, which means there are only 9 hospital beds available for every 10,000 people. The number stands at 30 in China. Interestingly the total government expenditure on health care as percent of GDP in 2007 is 4.1 in India and in China it is 4.3!

I don’t want to make this blog full of statistics. The readers are well versed in googling correct terms and read the publications. But I wanted to cover certain basic tenets on which a country can assess its progress and unfortunately, our government is miserably failing in those indicators. What’s worse is unless these basic issues are fixed - our children are born in safe and healthy environment, they are educated decently and provided means to earn livelihood, we will keep stumbling in the future.

And I haven't even talked about the inflation monster that's wrecking havoc in last five years. 

Sources:

1)      “New roads to economic growth”

http://www.traffictechnologytoday.com/features.php?BlogID=522

2)      Education’s primary problems

http://www.financialexpress.com/news/education-s-primary-problems/948273

3)      Why the state of India’s primary education is shocking

http://www.firstpost.com/india/why-the-state-of-indias-primary-education-is-shocking-598011.html?utm_source=ref_article

4)      Healthcare: Reaching out to the masses

http://www.kpmg.de/docs/Healthcare_in_India.pdf

The Great Tamasha!

I will be honest; I supported Kejariwal when he was with Anna. I supported him when he formed a political party inspite of reservations from Anna. I backed him up running for Delhi elections and I was very happy that he trounced Congress in Delhi vidhan sabha elections. And then he formed the government. I am not against him forming the government but for him to form the government with Congresse’s support was debasement of everything he stood for. Rather everything he said that he stood for. How can he? The Delhi government was ruled by Congress for fifteen years and yet he equated Congress with BJP and then took Congress support to form the government. What am I missing? Either I am hallucinating in the land of illogic or this guy, kejariwal must be smoking Kathmandu mewa! In my mind, he should have let the hung parliament, well, hung and then called for another round of elections. He either would have gotten trounced or received more votes to form government outright. Sadly he got power hungry even before he sat on the sinhasan. Taking Congress support wasn’t he worse part, as it turn out to be, it was just the start of lies and drama.

Right after coming to the power he started making grand gesture. Cut the power and water bill. And if you ask him who’s (baap!) going to pay the deficit then you are branded as a BJP member, a traitor, an anti-national. Let’s audit the power firms, water board and everything under the sky. Then he realized, this shit won’t garner enough publicity. So let that go aside and let’s send our law minister on a vigilante trip. Let him embarrass himself and then let’s go on dharana to avenge him embarrassing himself! What, there was another gang-rape? Splendid, he figured out how to dodge the bullet better than Sheila Dixit. He leveraged the rape to gain more publicity and create more drama. He paralyze the whole state government, shut-down the Metro, threaten the R-Day parade (which is only days away) and proclaim himself an anarchist and sat on a Dharana. What was the dharana for? Suspend the cops who went teeth for teeth with his Law Minister? Suspend the cops who let the gang rape happen? And get Delhi police report to the Delhi state government rather than the central government?

No one knows because his dharana achieved nothing. Well, nothing for the public that he swears he serves. But it was a grand success for his personal ambition. Now he wants to run for the Lok Sabha election. Now he wants to be a Prime Minister. And through dharana he is getting free advertisement in NDTV et al. Brilliant plan indeed!  

As sweepers started cleaning the streets Kejariwal and Co. littered, the reality dawned on everybody.  Delhi police is still under Central government. The gang rapes, very unfortunately, will continue to happen. (WTF is wrong with Delhi people?)  Even the prostitution and drug racket that his Law Minister bravely tried to stop will continue its business. Nothing changed. The reality that was yesterday continue to be the reality today. But the idea, protesting against the corrupt and bringing them down on their knees, that had power yesterday died chaotic death at the hands of political brinkmanship and personal ambition.

Mr. Kejariwal, you no longer have my support! 

The Power Structure

As the election is getting closer, the Congress Party is working feverishly to protect its turf. They have not yet anointed the chosen ‘one’. Perhaps out of fear that they are about to get trounced in the election and they want to protect their brand, the Gandhi brand. Or maybe they have some grandstanding gesture up their sleeves akin to recent ordinance bill drama that will launch Rahul Gandhi in a positive light. Their recent maneuvers like freeing Mulayam Singh, imprisoning Lalu etc. are little confusing to me. I mean the Congress Party owns the government, they own the bureaucracy, they brazenly toy with the law and with the Supreme Court verdicts; they own CBI and they even own the media. It is really hard to beat them. If they win enough seats, around 200, then the Lalu’s and Mulayam will flock to them anyways.  Not sure what are they worried about!

Perhaps, Narendra Modi?

I always wonder how the Congress Party survives. The sycophancy, the moral, ethical and mental corruption, general lack of creativity and inability to keep up with the changing times should have obliterated the party long time ago.  Instead it got second wind ten years ago and it’s still kicking strong. The dynasty of Gandhi has been pretty successful.  They took advantage of parliamentary politics and used the dictatorial powers where necessary. Except for brief period of Shastri and Narsimharao government, these Gandhis have maintained absolute strong hold over Congress party. So much so that it is hard to believe that Congress party was the political voice of India before independence.  

How do you create a dynasty and maintain the power? First you destroy your enemies and win the ultimate seat of power. Then, you ruthlessly and efficiently weed out any internal opposition and create divisions among the rest. And finally, you create a system of favors and kick-backs that balances the contesting interest and ensure your supreme authority. Mind you achieving these targets is not easy. Especially the last part of granting favors appropriately is a very tough act. Once you figure out the balancing act, the results can be fabulous though. You have uncontested power that attracts money, which in turn, gives you more power to rule and dole out favors. The whole structure props itself up. Not a bad position to be! The Gandhis did exactly that with the Congress party.

The party of Congress soon became party of Nehru and Gandhis after independence. Jawaharlaal Nehru wasn’t the most popular by any stretch nor was he competent. But he was Mahatma Gandhi’s favorite and in pre-independence era that’s all it mattered. So Nehru was forced India as our first Prime Minster. So the first part of dynastic politics – grabbing power, was made easy for Gandhis ironically by another Gandhi.  What followed was systematic destruction of anything resembling democracy in the party. Nehru and his progenies became de-facto leaders. For example, Nehru installed Indira Gandhi as chief of Congress Party in 1958 in spite of presence of senior leadership in the party. There after the party slowly descended from party of people to private properly of Gandhis. Nehru-Gandhis became the rulers of India and Congress party became the instrument to rule.  Allegiance and prostration to Gandhi’s became primary criteria to survive and thrive in the Party. Their favors will get anyone a Lok-Sabha seat, a plum position in the government and open doors of riches for you. If you are in their good books you are sort of ‘made man’.  

Important to note here is that such submission was always by choice. No one has asked Manmohan to be who he is or to be in a position that he is. Sonia Gandhi did him a favor by choosing him as her Prime Minister over others and in return Manmohan will do anything to please her. Same applies to all sycophants from the era of Indira Gandhi to Rahul Gandhi.  The latest example is of Digvijay Singh, the erstwhile Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh. His ticket back to power is to stoop to any depths for Rahul Gandhi. His erratic, borderline anti-national statements are well planned to deflect any attention on the government failures and on Gandhi family. For his services he will be awarded at least a cabinet minister position if Congress is to come to power.

There is no wonder that these folks, the party, Gandhis and scores of beneficiaries of this structure hate Narendra Modi to the core. These people are enjoying fruits of power for last ten years. The Vajpayee era was bad for these folks, no power, no avenues to siphon money, nothing else to do. It took certain amount of luck to come back to power after Mr. Vajpayee. They ain’t gonna let power slip through their fingers easily. The systemic ways CBI was used to prosecute certain individuals while exonerating others is just the beginning. The ‘system’ will be in full force before election to ensure return of Gandhis to the power. 

Narendra Modi was never part of any system, he carries no sycophants or‘chamachas’ in his back pocket, he is incorruptible, he has no family history and no intention to establish dynastic politics. He is a shrewd politician who understands the necessities of playing dirty politics and he has huge mass appeal. In short he is anti-thesis of what Congress party and Gandhis stands for. Since he does not belong to the system, he has the best chance to beat the odds. I hope he does exactly that.

The Cash, The Caste and The Election

The next general election is around the corner. Technically there is at least one more year to ago but there may be an early call for the election or perhaps, the government will crumble before that. In any case the country is in so much misery that I sincerely hope that Congress party is booted out. Our Prime Minister, the so called economist, never had any grip over governance. It was never any secret that he lacks political acumen, oratory or rudimentary leadership skills but what was surprising was his lack of understanding in economics and financial sector. He royally messed up Indian economy and it will take years to come out of hole he dug for us. The FDI is in shambles, the infrastructure is miserable, the rupee is coming down the pike with no breaks and the inflation is through the roof. Now economy is not an exact science, I know. You can argue about one aspect by justifying the measures taken for other aspect. But when you screw everything in one go, especially when the economic engine Manmohan inherited was roaring and ready to shift to next gear, then either the folks at the helm are illiterate and incompetent and/or corrupt. I can vouch that Manmohan is not an illiterate; I have seen him reading his speeches. And, I am tired of typing incompetent, corrupt and Manmohan in same sentence.

Did we talk about the foreign policy? Don’t get me started on that topic. An unmitigated disaster!  He pushed India’s standing downwards, he demoralized the troops and he should be held partly responsible for all the terrorist attacks that killed scores of innocent folks in last ten years.

Even I.K Gujral and H.D. Dewe Gowada are thinking “Man…I was better than this!”

As if that wasn’t enough the shrill election rhetoric of Congress party is deafening and disorienting. The nerve to whitewash the failures, the audacity to put country second to their personal gains is mind-numbing. How many times they will talk about communalism? I guess till the cows come home. And cows won’t ever come home because they have already sold’em to the butchers.

For an outsider observer the only topic on the agenda seems to be communalism and secularism. There is a whole industry – media, politicians and the so-called experts, feeding families on this topic. But winning election is little more complicated than honking communalism horns! The two big C that caste wide shadow over election is Cash and Caste. It is incredible to see how government of India over last sixty years aggressively tried to eradicate caste system and yet, how powerful the system remains. Folks still vote along the caste lines. A political party has to be aware of caste equations and field candidate accordingly. Of course, opposition party also fields a candidate from that caste. So pandering for caste votes begins. Throwing goodies like reservation policies, job quotas etc. ensues. It’s a downward spiral from there. Since development of any sort is not on anyone’s mind the country as a whole suffers while caste identities remain deeply entrenched.

The cash is of course necessary for running an election campaigning. You need bundles of it for holding large rallies, for TV advertisements, for banners but aside from that, cash is king in a very old fashioned way. You can buy votes with cash. Cash can be distributed for votes or bribe the official who count the votes. Bam, problem solved!

I recently watched Mr. Modi’s rebuttal to the government on food security bill. Now, if Congress party was in opposition then they would simply resort to food security bill being communal. No need to read the bill or suggest any changes, no need to educate the voters. Nothing! The bill is communal and they would rest their case. On the other hand, Mr. Modi methodically and objectively shed light on the aspects of the bill. I for one did not know anything about the bill. Though I knew the bill must be full of typical Manmohan crap since any bill he proposes is usually bulls%^t. But when I watched Mr. Modi’s speech I realized why the bill is such a bad idea. In short Mr. Modi did what he was supposed to do. He studied a topic and presented its nuances to the voters. He tried to educate the voters rather than just pandering for their votes. Let the voters decide how he/she wants to proceed on the bill; politician’s job is to present the contrasting views. There are scores of such videos where Mr. Modi elucidates on various topics. There is nothing communal about it! This is a prime example of constructive opposition. Whether you agree with him or not, you know more about a topic than before. You have better tools to make decision than before. He is not trying to fool you or woo you. He respects your intelligence and asks you to make sensible choice by providing more information. Obviously, by providing more information he negates Caste and Cash effects. Voters will start voting on the issues rather than for the candidate. In short, voters will be empowered.

This is all bad for the Congress party and for Manmohan since he doesn’t like empowering people. Manmohan likes enrichment; self-enrichment that is!

It’s a long way to go before Mr. Modi gets elected. He will still have to cautiously tread along the caste line. He will still have to raise tons of money. He will still have to do back-hand deals to garner votes. But he shows glimpse of what and how things are supposed to be. 

Wanted: An Orator Visionary!

A friend of mine recently shared an old video of famed Marathi literary write P. L. Deshpande (Pu. La.) and former Prime Minster of India Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Both of them were attending a public function to celebrate life and works freedom fighter V.D. Savarkar (Veer Savarkar) in Pune. The video doesn’t have a date on it but based on reference to Shahabano verdict by Pu. La. I think the function took place in later part of 80’s. That decade was full of upheaval. The democratically elected dictatorship of Indira Gandhi, met ghastly end, rise of Rahul Gandhi Version 1 i.e. Rajiv Gandhi and his subsequent fall, rise of Mandal era along with coalition politics. On the international front, India was to lose thousands of soldiers in ill-fated IPKF mission and the Kashmir terrorism was about to enter the bloodiest phase. In short, the decade highlighted the complete political and ideological failure of Indian leaders.

The function was a treat to ears and to the soul. On one hand was a literary giant whose positive impact on Marathi is unquestionable. However, in this context, his other quality – he was a free thinker who did not let the traditions or social norms restrict his mind was in full galore. And then there was Vajpayee ji – who obviously need no introduction - a true leader, a true statesman, a true visionary and a true politician who always played politics for the sake of betterment than self-enrichment. But the most important characteristic of these two individuals was that they were orators of highest quality.

One more point to note from the perspective of their views on Savarkar – Pu.LA was avowed atheist and Vajapayee ji , theist who strongly believed in cultural norms, traditions and history. It is a testament to Savarkarian thoughts that in spite of coming from opposite spectrum both Pu. La. and Vajapayee ji could seamlessly paint a narrative on Savarkar.

These two giants played a role of a leader through their oratory. On the stage,  both of these individual not only succinctly captured life and thoughts of Savarkar but they also presented solutions of current issues that India was facing.

One of the key feature of a leader is his / her ability to educate and inspire the masses. Pu. La. and Vajapyee ji weaved the essence of Savarkar’s ideology and philosophy with current issues in simple terms and forced audience to introspect. Some folks are just born good in oration. It comes natural to them. Others have to work on the skill. From the perspective of leadership is not only essential but it is the hallmark of a leader. There are two key qualities a leader should possess – one, to synthesize information, map it to their experience and then see the big picture correctly. And second, it’s their duty elucidate an idea to the masses in inspiring words – the idea that for most purposes is incomprehensible to most. Add years of experience and the words gain weight of wisdom.

India was full of such leaders in 80’s and 90’s. Oration was mandatory in political circles. Whether it was chaste Hindi of Vajapayee ji or Advani ji or Bihari Hindi Lalu, holding tens of thousands of people spell bound was quite common. But something happened in last decade and half and suddenly there is absolute dearth of orator leaders. Apart from notable exceptions like L. K. Advani, Narendra Modi and Sushama Swaraj I don’t think there is any political leader left in India who can mesmerize the crowd. Sadly this speaks to the sorry state of current politics.

I remember going to a general election rallies in my hometown. The rally featured both L.K. Advani and Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Unfortunately, Vajyapee ji couldn’t attend but Advani ji spoke for more than half an hour without any notes or prompting. I couldn’t even see him from where I was standing. But his elocution, his impeccable command on Hindi and his vision for our country transfixed me. His words were full of integrity, character and truthfulness. It was an election rally so general political gimmicks were obvious yet he managed to present an idea on how we can achieve greatness as a nation A person with incorruptible character, his words carried weight of his achievements. I have watched many of Vajpayee ji’s videos yet I still rue my misfortune of not listening to him live.

The current ruling party, it should rather be called as ruling mafia, lacks public speakers of even rudimentary caliber. This is not only because majority of these folks do not know what to say unless prompted by high command but also because they do not have anything worthwhile to say. They have achieved nothing and they have no principals but to sit at the feet of high command. They do not have any experiences that can enrich anyone’s life and they do not have any vision to inspire anyone. They know they do not serve the people but rather rule them. Have you heard of any of the British rulers or viceroys being great public speakers? No, because they never had to. They ruled us, we were their slaves. You don’t need to lead your slaves; you don’t have to inspire them. You don’t have to make their life better. All you do is to make sure they work hard, punish them if they don’t and crush them if they try to be independent.

In 80’s and early 90’s, the Congress leaders at least had decency to make tall claims in public rallies. I remember Rajiv Gandhi making grandstanding statements like ‘Garibi Hatao’.  They would lie but at least had guts to stand in front of people to do so. Now, they simply publish a press report or plant fake, paid news through the newspapers. The Rahul Gandhi show is such a sorry state in spite of ‘arranged’ positive press coverage, that people are simply ignoring it. Gone are the days of political gimmicks where one of these Gandhi would at least sweat in sun to lie in front of crowd. Yesterday government proceeded to publish a laughable report about how poverty has been reduced in last six years. Our ‘economist’ Prime Minster did not even bother to talk about it. Of course, he is timid and mute but still quite clever. So instead of actually reducing poverty by raising income, standards of living, education and health index etc. he simply changed the definition of poverty. So now, only beggars are officially below poverty but if you are working and yet struggling to provide even basic food to your family or send kids to a decent public school where they can actually learning something then tough luck folks, you are fucked! Didn’t you read the report?

I digressed but I can’t stop myself from ranting about current state of Indian government. My point is that political situation in India is so dire that there is a serious want of good leader who is a visionary, a well-read and accomplished individual, who knows how India breaths, who knows our history, our culture, who can lay out our problems, treat all of us like sensible individual, who can enthrall a crowd with his oration, who can lay-out our future and then lead us.

Mod ji, we definitely, certainly, unquestionably, 100% need you. 

The End Of An Era

The news didn’t hit me hard as expected. The unraveling started last year when offered with more money Ray still opted to play with the Heat. That did not feel right. KG, Paul and Rajon were still there but without Ray it just did not feel right. I expected some important players to join the team over the summer but that did not happen. Jason certainly is a good player but one, he is past his prime and second, well, he ain’t Ray! I didn’t know much about Courtney then and don’t know much about him now. He went into hiding the moment he joined the team. Apart from these two additions there wasn’t much worth mentioning. Danny screwed up quite a bit here.

The session started alright. Typical Celt style, always catching up! I kept my horses tied and waited for the ‘shit just real’ moment that would typically announce start of Celtics session in last Jan or Feb. That moment never showed up. Instead, Rajon’s ACL quit on him. And she took whatever left of the session. Yes, everyone knew that Cetls will play in the playoffs but everyone also knew that they won’t beat anyone there. Their ranking (8^th) for majority of the session was, unfortunately, absolutely spot-on.. They still beat the Heat once and came awfully close to beating them again (and breaking Heat’s record win streak) but that has more to do with indomitable spirit of KG and Paul than anything else. Them old dogs knew where’s the bone! The whole affair felt like last rites, placidly going in the ground. No last hurrah, no heroic wins, no more comebacks. Once proud bunch slowly fading into past.

I couldn’t watch their games anymore. Irrespective of their brief rejuvenation in Game 4, the series against Knicks was painful. It was time to draw curtains.

The Celtics era of 2008-2013 was so intertwined with my stay in Boston their demise feels personal. I moved to Boston a month after KG and Ray showed up on the banks of Charles. I was entering into a relatively stable stage in my life and had more time and enthusiasm for basketball again. Watching Celtics 2007-08 was magical. They played the game in truest fashion. Their defense was a clinic presented every game and their offense, though always in need of spark, worked utterly efficient. Rajon was still learning his trade but he was still the master. KG was a year away from parting with his ACL, Paul was still couple of years removed from old age. And Ray, well, was Ray. Their championship run was well deserved. They were the best, hands down.

As I engrained myself into Celtics culture, the team continued to provide wholesome entertainment. They never won championship, coming awfully close twice; it was a treat watching them. And even though I moved to west coast I continued to bleed green.

Last year’s loss to Heat in game 7 was excruciatingly painful to stomach. I guess in hindsight that was indeed the last hurrah. This year was one year too much. There was no way the group would have continued. I expected changes but still, I didn’t expect all of my folks to leave in haste. They didn’t even say Bye. They were just gone taking an era with them.

So long my friends, you were the best! Thanks for the memories, I will always appreciate them.

The Great Fix!

The news was not expected, to me at least. It was impossible to argue, in spite of lack of concrete evidence, that IPL is not rigged. It turned out to be worse than I thought. My feeling was that the tournament was fixed from the top i.e. the administration is fixing the results to suit them. And though I think that still is the case (Chennai’s team is owned by chief of BCCI, how fucked up that conflict of interest has to be!), it has emerged that even players were fixing the games. I do not think the trio currently in bind are the only ones. Two of the players are virtually unknown to have any effect on the results on sustained basis. The fixing goes down deeper, the so called super-stars have to be involved.

It is a batsman’s game. The fixing plan, as per Delhi Police, was bowlers will leak out pre-determined number of runs in a particular over. There was an elaborate system to signal bookies about the players where bowlers were going to ‘take a dive’. But if batsman refuses to hit the bowl, even if the delivery is mother of all lose delivery then what? Also, what if batsman is dumb enough to get out or mishit and gets caught? Also, if two of the bowlers in question were at best fringe players for their respective state teams. If they had this kind of precision to leak the runs then they would be fucking playing for India by now. The only way this plan would work is if batsman was also part of the fix. The bowler will throw a dumb delivery and batsman, knowing this, will hit for the boundary.

Can anyone please ask these questions to the cops? Oh right, the media and the press already work for BCCI and IPL, they will summarily bury this issue in a week or so.  

Even if these bowlers had not got caught, the signs of IPL being fixed are all over the place. The teams are structured haphazardly; the ownerships are shrouded in mystery and the source of funding is murky. If that wasn’t enough then BCCI administration was transitioning into a political organization headed by one of the most corrupt politician in the country. Do you think he really gave a shit about Cricket? He saw the opportunity to siphon money and he jumped in with his two feet. His cotire is who’s who of power and money and IPL was their call to duty.

The prices of teams were beyond wildest imagination. To give readers some perspective – NBA's Boston Celtics was sold to new owners in 2001 for around $340 Million. The team has highest number of championships in the history of NBA; they were the pioneers of employing black players and hiring a black coach. They won unprecedented 9 championships in a row, the feat hasn’t been accomplished again. They, in short, defined Basketball and NBA. On the other hand, Pune’s IPL sold for the same price with virtually no history in IPL and no solid future plan. And, I am discounting the fact that Boston is in US where $ is the currency while Pune is in India where Rs. Is the currency and $1 is equivalent to Rs.55 that means the you have to multiply $340 by  55 to get the valuation of team in Rupee.

Okay…I will stop here….what I meant to say is this shit is fucked up!

I have already ranted about how IPL is ruining Indian cricket. It was befuddling to see players like Sehwag and Gambhir throw away their privilege of playing for India, just so that they could earn more money playing in IPL. By the way, playing for India does earn them millions of dollars (again multiply it by 55 to get their real income in Rupee!) I argued that lure of money shouldn’t be a reason for them to act like this and I also said that this precedent will kill Cricket. I didn’t realize that these players have sold their soul for money.

To be honest all of this doesn’t matter as long as public is flocking to watch the games and flock they will! If we don’t demand honesty then we will only get crooks, if we don’t demand commitment then we will only get money mongers. We get what we deserve, nothing more nothing less!

Kai Po Che - An Alternate Version!

Recently tried to watch Kai Po Che. I didn’t finish it. I couldn’t. I could see how the movie will unfold within first half and hour. I was enraged. But it wouldn’t be sincere to criticize a movie without watching it. So I read the movie synopsis and guess what, I was furious!
 
The movie quality was excellent. The actors played their role sincerely and direction had a purpose. Overall a quality product. But the movie wasn’t a typical run of the mill love story for me to let it go. The subject wasn’t benign. The story is written by Chetan Bhagat, one of the most popular modern day English language author in India. I have never read any of his material but the movie he wrote was such a farce.
 
To say the truth was twisted is an overwhelmingly understatement.
 
When I first heard that the story is set at the backdrop of 2001 Gujarat Riots, I knew the ‘secular’ bias will creep in. It wasn’t simply a story of friendship evolving amidst riots. The riots were central and the bias was essential to the story line. The oft littered Om’s, Swastika’s, photos of gods and goddesses, the backdrop of Temple in every frame, seemingly innocuous, had a dark motive. These symbolism was essential in communicating the‘Hindu conservative’ upbringing of the central characters. The main antagonist, a politician, is a pop culture misrepresentation of BJP/RSS/Shiv Sena leadership. He was portrayed in most negative light – a coward, corrupt and a power hungry anti-Muslim opportunist who would take advantage of his ‘bhanja’ in his nefarious design. I mean Hindi films usually portray mafia underworld in a positive light! Special sequence was created to emphasize the divisive nature of this Hindu politician when he purposefully helps only Hindus after the earthquake. On the other hand, Muslims are showed in best possible lights with no religious fundamentalism whatsoever. The burning of 60 Hindus in Godhra by Muslim mob was fleetingly mentioned as if it was a natural occurrence.

I am not saying Muslims should have shown in a negative light but to clearly demarcate between politicians with Hindu leanings being hell-bent on destroying the lives of peace loving, hard-working, and poor Muslims is a disgusting way of defining the secularism. I don’t think there’s any country in the world where the concept of secularism is disfigured as it is in India. The majority is hostage in their own country! (No, I am not saying minorities do not belong to this country. India is their country too but they are not special because of their religion.)  


The story was loyal to how media and the so called ‘secular’ politicians usually present the reality. The nuance of Hindu-Muslim interaction, their wretched history, the current political pandering for Muslim votes and Muslim communities increasing insistence on not taking advantage of advancing economy is purposefully neglected. The blame was put on Hindus for the riots and politicians with Hindu leanings were shown as conspiring against Muslims. A new reality was created out of thin air and packaged as a serious take of 2001 riots.

In any case, since when the fuck did Indians started caring about truth or reality?

How about an alternate story line: Three Muslim friends start a cricket academy. They spot a raw talent, a young boy with penchant for hitting sixes. He happens to be a Hindu. They started training him hard. They ensure that his training goes well in spite of many challenges (like earthquake and stuff!). Then the riots started. Awfulness ensued but these three Muslim youth protect our Hindu boy and his family. They fight against other Muslims in saving these Hindus and one of the friend dies heroically for the cause. Rest of the two friends then exposes the Muslim politicians and terrorist who burnt the Godhra train.

Anyone wants to produce this storyline? I will write the script for free!

The Reality Of History

I am almost 1/3 way ‘kindling’ “The People’s History of United States” by Howard Zinn. (I am copyrighting the term ‘Kindling’ i.e. reading a book on Kindle!) First time I learned about this book when Mr. Zinn was making at my college for a lecture. The book's been on my reading list since then. The book is a factual history of people and for people. The ‘people’ are the working class poor, the downtrodden, and the sufferers. The book presents history as is, without white-washing (literally!). And it surely does an admirable job. The book was written to counter the ‘official’ history popular with the masses and taught in the schools. I don’t know how American history book present their past but it is safe to assume that sharp edges are sawed-off and bloody aspects washed clean. It is hard to teach kids that the ‘land of free’ is built by systematically removing native Indians from their own land or enslaving millions of soul simply because of their skin color. It ain’t sexy, you know!

The premise of the book is that the country always excluded majority population from ruling and in essence, is not a true democracy. The rich and the powerful interests always governed and laws are structured to serve them. The blacks, native Indians, woman (all of them) and poor whites were systematically disfranchised right from the declaration of independence. Even the Civil War of 1861 was stimulated more by economic interests of rich than actual opposition to Slavery. (That is not to say there was no opposition to slavery. The north-eastern states had banned slavery for almost 100 years prior to civil war but if it wasn’t for necessity of opening of southern markets and emergence of western frontier, the emancipation of blacks would have been delayed further.)

I am currently going through the Civil War chapter.

I agree with this premise but to argue that true democracy is an ideal state is utopian. It never happened in human history and will not happen ever. The way human psyche works and responds, there’s always someone at the top taking advantage of others who are at the bottom. Garbs could be different; they may be Kings, rich barons, military dictators, monopolist industrialists or Priests. Revolution may throw the existing system but inherent structure remains the same. The human ambition forces people to coagulate, build, destroy, annihilate and rebuild again. There is no cure for this.

I am not trying to defend the actions of European settlers (or invaders!). Without a shred of moral hesitancy, they summarily annihilated all Native Americans. The Founding Fathers of United States proclaimed a grand-standing constitution granting freedom to everyone even though they had slaves and allowed the practice of slavery, disfranchised women and voting rights were based on property owned. I am not saying that these acts should not be criticized.

But there is no denying that this is how the world works and will continue to work. Unjust and violent

Back to the book!

The Syrian Quagmire

The Syria crisis is turning murky and bloody. The civil wars are always a bloody affair so no surprise there. In today’s world, resources – human or natural, play important role in defining the world order. On the contrary Syria which contributes pretty much nothing to the world is playing such an important role in defining the future conflicts. The Syrian situation is interesting because wide array of actors with diverse interests are jostling over this ancient land. Apart from the Basher al Assad, the dictator of Syria, we have Israel, US, the Sunni block (Saudi, Egypt, Jordan etc.), Iran and the Islamic fundamentalist - Al Quida types terrorist organizations - jostling for power in Syria.

Why so much is invested in this piece of land? As I said before this country does not product anything of use. The answer is its proximity to Israel. But this is easy to understand, right? Well, no, in terms of complexity things go downhill from here. The country has been under rule of Assad’s for last 40 years and like other Arab countries, Syria maintains bitter acrimony with Israel. The Assads are Alwaite, an Islamic sect like Shia’s and Sunnis. But majority – 86%, of Syrians are Sunnis. In order to maintain their power they actively feed off Iran for weapons and money. Iran, a Shia state, shares the hatred of Sunnis with Assads. And in order to increase their power in the Arab land Iran uses Syria as a base. Please bear with me as I go deeper in this rabbit hole. The Shias, sunnis and Alwaits share hatred for Israel. So to prove their Islamic credentials they do crazy shit to mess with Israel. The sunni block supports the Palestinian movement. It’s in their interest for Palestine not to form so that they can keep fighting proxy war with Israel. Iran, instead of going through the Palestine cause, supports terrorist organizations like Hezbollah. This terrorist organization is based out of Syria and Lebanon with stated aim of wiping Israel of world map.

In short, the Shia and Sunni block is fighting proxy war with each other by fighting proxy war with Israel through anti-Israel causes and terrorist organizations.

If you are familiar with the concept of Derivative, we are in the territory of double derivatives and about to enter the triple derivatives!

The situation, already dark, turns catastrophically complex when US brings its interest to the table. The Americans are least interested in Syria. The Syrian civil war has been going on for two years already. But three issues bring US to the table. One, they have to insert themselves in the any and every Middle-East situation when Israel is in the play. The Syrian civil war is too close to home for Israel to not to take a role. I am surprised it took them this long to start moving. The Syrians has held the Lebanon hostage for more than 25 years and had made that country a launching pad for attacking Israel. I would have expected Israel to be a major player in Syrian player long time ago.

The second factor is involvement of Iran. US is setting up stage for war in Iran for last three to four years. Under various pretexts, the Americans have been ratcheting up the military presence in Gulf of Homruz. This is making Iran uneasy, to say the least! But they be damned if they reduce their stupid-ass war mongering rhetoric.  With Syria though, Iran cannot afford to lose Assads since they invested so long and so much in them.  With Iran in play in Syrian war, Americans has to jump in the fray to neutralize them. Perhaps, Iran is trying to divert US’s attention away from them.

The third factor is the Islamic fundamentalists creeping into the Syrian war. The remnants of Al-Quida are still active in pockets across the world.  These fundamentalist morons thought they will run with the Iraq war but Americans busted their chops efficiently and comprehensively. Now the ‘left-overs’ are trying to hijack the Syrian war. They have sided with anti-Assad forces, at least for now. And if Assad is to be thrown out then they are hoping to use Syria their home for their grand ambition.

Suffice to say American’s are not happy with this play. They want Al-Quida and Co. dead and buried and I don’t mean that metaphorically! The American response to Syrian crises is limited to providing food and occasional intelligence tips to the rebels. But it won’t be long before we see a concrete in place.

The US policy decisions will impact the future conflict in the middle-east. Involvement of Americans in this conflict will decide whether they have enough political will and band-width to wage full-scale war with Iran. If the Assads are thrown out then Iran will lose a key ally and that may force them to de-escalate their rhetoric with Americans but if that’s to happen then it means Islamic fundamentalist would gain upper hand in Syria and which in turn will draw further attention of Americans. The Americans cannot side with Assads since Assads are supported by Iran but US cannot necessarily side with the rebels either since that means they will be helping the Islamic fundamentalist. Talk about to be or not to be!

It is mind-numbing and impossible to predict how the glass will break but one way or another civil war in this tiny and useless piece of land will reshape the middle-eastern geo-politics.

The New Yorker recently ran an extensive article on the effect of Syrian civil war on civilians. Tens of thousands have been killed in the war so far. The war is already gruesome but it’s taking turn for worse. Assad’s don’t give a fuck about anyone. They won’t mind killing everyone if that’s to mean they can cling to the power. They have used helicopters, artillery and recently, chemical weapon on civilians. Sadly history of middle-east is littered with Assads. It’s the poor who die in troves and yet, fail to impress on any final outcome. This war is of war of empires and human life is least of anyone’s concern.