Intolerance is for Real

Their fears are indeed real. They are not lying for sure. But sadly, it is all nothing but their hallucination and that is arguably their self creation. For no fault of theirs, they have been made to believe since independence that RSS is out and out an extremist organization with a single mission of driving minorities out of India. The secular brigade led by the left-liberal ‘extra-nationals’ have worked over-excessively all through to somehow construct a perception that has no real foundation, strangely. Just notice the recent comparison that an eminent secular made between ISIS and RSS. The ISIS with only about 50000 members has kept the entire militarily-developed west on their toes with their mindless showcasing of terror incidents. But it goes only to the credit of our skewed-seculars who can still believe that an organization with 50 lac members having its presence at 50000 places as Shakha units in this country can also be as irrational as the ISIS. Surprisingly, they fail to notice the glaring contrast between the two. Only if someone in his senses would extrapolate the situation assuming the presence of 50 lac alleged ‘Hindu ISIS’ in India, even a counter argument would lose its worth. It is not difficult to recall their desperation during the built-up before the last Loksabha election. I remember several of these making chest-beating appeals to the voters not to support BJP. They were apparently more than convinced that their hate-campaign that they had carried out for the past more than half a decade would never allow an RSS supported BJP to come to the power. They thought that they have been successfully able to convince the peace-loving and inherently secular majority of India to identify RSS with the communal tag.

We must now realize that this left-liberal extra-national brigade did not want the BJP to come to the power not because they feared a regime of intolerance towards minorities but – they actually feared even worse. They feared that with this government at the centre, their more than half a century propaganda for branding RSS as a rabid communal organization would get thoroughly exposed. The source of their strength to keep on maligning RSS came only from a well-executed mis-campaign. They were losing their sleep on the thought of the voters accepting BJP finally as a truly-secular party. All hell broke for them when the inevitable happened. Modi became the PM. All fears that they had been spreading to the voters were suddenly put to test. The propagandists had no option left but to create a scenario to prove that whatever they had been warning us for was never hypothetical or imaginary. They went overboard by picking up each single case that had a potential to be blown out of proportion. They started filtering the news with their skewed-magnifying lenses. Initially all negative news on the churches were reported with only single flavor. The investigation results unfortunately failed their campaign completely. They looked for another spate of incidents and finally they got one – the barbaric lynching of a human being. They only wanted a single streak to swim the tide – and they got that. Even though the immediate responsibility was of another ‘secular’ government, ‘seciulars’ did not have the luxury to care for this contradiction. They could have hardly afforded to miss this glimmer-opportunity. They kept on pushing the ventilator of award-returning ‘oxygen’ to keep the issue fat and alive. A scientific analysis based on the available statistical-data would refuse to hint at any conclusion that can justify this ‘intolerance-hype’ bult-up, but when did they bother themselves to engage in an honest discussion on such serious issues. They have a habit of using situations, accidents and emotions as tools to fool and bluff us.

And I pity for Amir Khan and Kiran – for getting counted as the latest victims of this ‘manufactured’ fear campaign carried out by the left-congress-secular trio.

BJP - the Dalit of Indian Politics

(Published in the Organiser issue of November 8,2015 http://epaper.organiser.org/epaper.aspx?lang=4&spage=Mpage&NB=2015-10-31#Mpage_25 )
        These days BJP is experiencing what Dalits generally feel when they taste success. BJP symbolizes the forces, that were till recently discarded as ‘untouchables’ by the mainstream politics. To the discomfort of these mainstream forces, they have now been able to position themselves at the fulcrum of the Indian politics from where they are about to dictate a new paradigm. The upper caste political dispensation (Congress and Left combine) are unable to digest the rise of nationalist forces. They are losing their peace and balance as they find themselves cornered in the political space - to witness what they had never dreamt of. A socio-political mindset that was created and constructed by these upper-caste political constructs and was used to enjoying power since the British rule, is now being seriously challenged by the hitherto ‘marginalized’ BJP. Those who are suffering from the ‘ill-belief’ that only British or British-like mindset (read congress) can govern India - are losing their sleeps. Those who were used to getting favours from the government in return to their full time effort in maintaining this mind set (read as Left) have suddenly started losing their grounds. These forces have invested their life in trying to make us believe that we can be properly governed only through some ‘imported ideology’. Drawing parallel with the upper caste mentality, they wanted us to believe that ‘nationalist forces’ are not good enough to govern. They are convinced that, left on our own indigenous thoughts, we will fight to finish ourselves. They think that ‘nationalists’ need to be taught lessons on the idea of 'secularism', 'socialism', 'equal opportunity' and 'development' as they have least regard for these instruments that are absolutely necessary to claim any progress in the modern world. For this, they want us to feel ashamed of our past, to disown our existence and to feel dependent on borrowed constructs and imported ideology to think of making any meaningful progress.

          Just as the upper castes, they have carefully calibrated a socio-political order where those who were ready to disown their roots/existence and were ashamed of their past were categorized as acceptable and worthy for taking control of the government whereas those who drew inspiration from the past or from indigenous thoughts were termed as lumpens and goons required to be brainwashed before giving any responsibility. This upper caste construct in our political setup believed that their empire would grow with time and would never be in danger. Their unthinkable and unimaginable fears have come true with the Modi government storming at the centre. And what is making them restless is that this government is also showing genuine promise of making India a progressive and economically developed country despite refusing to toe their prescribed line.

          Modi refused to read out the line of apology that was almost being forced by Karan Thapar just to make Modi admit his guilt; Modi refused to enact the skull-cap ‘secular’ drama, he insisted with everyone to realize the sincerity of his comment regarding puppy killing instead of retracting on the same; he started taking pride in several personalities other than Nehru and Gandhi; he started exhibiting his pride in our ancient culture, beliefs and texts – and therefore as per the judgment of the existing upper caste political construct - Modi was not fit to occupy the chair. But to snatch them of their livelihoods Modi arrived at the centre.

          With their dooming future looming large, just to prove their conjectures right, these forces are prepared to do everything to prove that this government is undesirable. To save themselves from becoming extinct, they are bent upon blowing up events after events entirely out of proportions to somehow project that India is now destined to doom, that the liberal space of this country has shrunk all of a sudden and that this country has suddenly turned into a country of cannibals and conservative intolerant. They are doing this despite the fact that this country has started showing a great turnaround in economy – that was never witnessed before in this country. A careful and academic exercise would be enough to show statistics that though the hate incidences need to be curbed immediately and effectively but contrary to the secular’s projection - it is far from peaking recently.

POLITICS ON CRIME - the Indian Phenomenon

Over the years since independence, India has developed a strange habit of classifying ‘gruesome crimes’ as - ‘hate-generating’, ‘communal clashes’, ‘religious fanaticism’, ‘class atrocities’, ‘gender suppression’, ‘reactionary outbursts’, ‘revolutionary unrest’ and recently as ‘media marketable’. To cover up the governance failures, administrative inefficiencies and other corrupt practices the administration has found it extremely useful and easy to play politics on crimes. To their relief, these classifications have helped the successive governments in setting up a trend where all other kind of crimes that are left ‘unclassified’ gets considered as ‘simple’ and therefore almost as ‘acceptable’. The information about the ‘character’ of a crime has become so important that we have got used to the news headlines such as ‘crime against minority’, ‘crime against child’, ‘crime against woman’, ‘crime against Dalit’ - so much so that thinking of headlines as ‘crime against men’, ‘crime against a majority community’, ‘crime against an adult’ or ‘crime against an upper caste’ are either likely to evoke laughter or no response at all. 

Not that the ‘classified’ crimes get any better or the desirable attention, but the government utilizes this politics only to pass the blame somehow on the majority community entirely. Being arguably one of the most tolerant and accommodating community existing in the world, this majority is then expected either to absorb the blame or to start hating itself. Under this ‘secular formula' we are expected to accept all the blame as ‘evils’ of our society and at the same time are also left to consider all other ‘unclassified’ crimes as natural, simple, normal (and therefore desirable??).

As its natural consequence the Indian administration wastes much of its precious time in ‘discovering’, ‘investigating’ and  ‘establishing’ the color and shade of a crime when it is actually required to act swiftly and efficiently. I am convinced that until this country stops taking interest in knowing the caste, gender, religion, faith and ideology of a victim – politics will continue to sideline our real administrative concerns. Instead of doing a political comparative analysis, the state must be extremely serious and ruthless in addressing all crimes and thereby punishing each criminal blindly. 

Arrogance of Education : In the context of HRD ministry

It is a case of colonial mindset that has established the supremacy of literary knowledge over wisdom. Wisdom comes from experience and the way that you lap up the opportunity you get in your life. We are yet to learn that any education system only helps in getting the opportunity but how to make use of that is never prompted by your acquired degrees. Though slightly less prevalent in Sciences it is somehow commonplace in Social Sciences to count and weigh the bibliography attached to one's statement before even giving it a hearing. Earlier to British invasion we probably never had a tradition of measuring the importance to a saying by weighing its originator. Traditionally we have been otherwise told that true knowledge is what that makes you bow with humility and prepares you to remain open for wisdom that can come from any quarter. The prevalent education started primarily by Britishers and later developed through Left-leaning brand of 'intellectuals' were wary of the vast knowledge and wisdom then existed in this ancient country and just out of fear established a rule to set aside all potential challenges to their fiefdom. They made reading, rote learning, passing exams and acquiring degrees essential for getting heard and noticed.

It is exactly this mind set that rates an English speaking fool better than someone arguing in a regional language. It is exactly this mindset that makes Mani Shankar Aiyar so rude to a 'tea seller' Modi. It is this rotten system of education that has injected arrogance into Maken who wants to stop a Smriti getting a chance to perform fearing that her performance might not give him another chance to raise such doubts. Kapils and Tharoors are the glaring products of this system who acquired arrogance through their degrees and have become completely non-receptive to any idea that has not originated from their school of thoughts. And for those who still doubt in this wisdom should at least learn from the attitude of the students of Harward University and IIM who did not ask Lalu to show his management degrees when he was called to deliver a lecture to share his experience in managing Indian Railways. I just hope that just an 'educated' Vivekananda had to roam around in search for an 'uneducated' Guru Ramkrishna Paramhans for his enlightenment, others do not find it that hard to get one of their own. Sri Aurobindo, a great yogi of Bengal once said: "India became free on the day when arrogant youth (Swamy Vivekananda) who had been to British schools bowed down humbly before the illiterate saint, knowing that he carried within him a greater power." 

Education, in true sense, is a progressive discovery of your own ignorance.

Effect of the 'Fake Encounter'

The wishful thinking “The BJP goes for its own jugular” (Counterpoint, HT July 25 issue) of Vir Sanghvi needs further analysis.

We have witnessed how BJP often tries to project the issue of foreign origin hoping that this will pin down the Congress but they never get the desired result as they fail to understand that the Congress has risen from ashes only with the rise of Sonia despite the common knowledge of her origin. For the voters this is already a well known fact and hence already taken into account of. In another similar case, the fodder scam was never an eye-opener for the voters of Laloo and hence the scam never had the effect as was desired by those who raised the issue. It is also not difficult to understand that a sting operation “unveiling” that Raj Thackerey is spitting venom against ‘north Indians’ and ‘biharis’ would be actually helping him to hold on to his vote bank. Another sting operation showing that CPI(M) is supporting naxal movement is in fact going to benefit them.

We often forget to analyze the circumstances and reasons that led to the rise of BJP in India. We must first acknowledge that the party rose to occupy the central place in Indian politics only after the demolition of Babri Masjid and also that Gujrat is under BJP rule for so long only due to the prevailing public perception of their way of handling of the Godhra issue. All attempts therefore to prove that they are not ‘secular’ acually help their cause. In fact these efforts help BJP in creating an image that they themselves will probably feel helpless in building up due to the constitutional constraints. BJP has never been considered as a secular party in the way this phrase is widely understood. BJP tried to change the understanding of this term in order to qualify for becoming the ‘true secular’ party and also by branding others as ‘pseudo-seculars’. All instances that the media try to blow sometimes out of proportion to prove that they are not secular actually help BJP to keep their vote bank intact. Analysis would conclude strongly in favour of the fact that the decline of BJP started as they tried to occupy the place reserved for Congress in Indian politics. Whether one likes it or not but the fact remains that Modi has risen against all odds just because the public at large believes all allegations imposed on him to be true. His ‘charishma’ starts fading whenever confusion begins to prevail about these allegations. Just when people start doubting his role in Godhra issue, some sting operation or the other helps them in reestablishing their faith.

To be precise, Pragya Thakur’s case shocked the BJP voters, Kausarbi’s murder too has the potential to shock them, but you can never surprise them with the disclosure that Shohrabuddin died in a fake encounter. And therefore it is just a wishful thinking of some that Amit Shah’s or for that matter Modi’s arrest is going to make BJP suffer. More often than not these “disclosures” have gone in favour of BJP in the past.