Congress had a disappointing results in 2023 November elections losing Three states where it was tagged favourites. What could be the reasons for their losses? Personally I expected at least two wins in Telangana and Chattisgarh and losing MP and Rajasthan owing to their dismal leadership and petty fights for internal power. But they even screwed Chhattisgarh as BJP understood Congress gameplay with manifestos, correcting its past mistakes. BJP’s victory goes deeper with Bhaghel’s foxy corrupt gameplay turning his past Supporters and Partymen to frenemies.
A proper ground report would have avoided disappointments as Congress State Leaders nowadays are One time elect Pony. One can safealy assume they will not last an subsequent term. I would not blame EVM heist for any of these defeats but Congress could do well avoiding its misuse in 2024 with proper precautions- escorting and guarding EVMs cradled in RSS-BJP’s strong rooms for a month. Would like to quote Sharad Pawar doubting 2018 results tweaked to deceive Congress, as their default arrogance peaks with simple wins. 2018 is an aberration, 2023 is not. BJP is now afraid of the massive INDIA alliance and its two third vote share along with its rattling agenda in nascency, and could scare them only with such formidable wins.
But this is much needed loss for the Party which suffers from all possible weaknesses after its Karnataka win.
BJP’s victories are in Cow belt States with inclination towards Hindutva. Even from 2000, these states have rewarded BJP and BJP delivered with their strong state leadership. So data reveals no surprises that Congress lost the States.
One size does not fit all… says the Tailor.
There is no visible central leadership from Congress. What worked for Karnataka will not work for other States. There is a clear North-South divide on how people elect and perceive Leadership. For an easy win in Karnataka, Congress fumbled with their manifesto confusion and Bajrang Bali had to help them out in the last minute. Thanks to Congress’ RSS and double thanks for screwing up MP too. Sometimes one wonders if Gandhis need to save cherished congress from its self-centered Old guard or save Congress from RG or to save RG from his infamous and inefficient coterie. Then one can only wonder, if the flood goes above the head, does it matter if it’s feet or inches above? Maybe none of the theory matters, actually what matters is to swim through the crisis. Else we all drown.
Congress professed that it will leverage local issues but seems only good at petty infighting locally within the the Party. In modern times where even movies need to build a positive work of mouth, the Party has a lot to do to rein in their supposedly Leaders whose merits are limited to the proximity to the Gandhis and skills limited to not allow anyone else to near them. Gandhis left it out to the Old Guards without any leash. The Old guards proved to be self serving selfish Leaders with a “My Way or Highway” approach leading themselves to nowhere. Its pathetic none of the Local leaders could sense the turf properly and unaware that even a small vote margin could play a bigger role. What is more startling is that all these Leaders assured High command of victory, making RG a Joke on winning all states. Hmmm. It’s the curse of Congress where the State Leaders give away easily after 5 years of corrupt rule and Central Leadership is known for indecisions or mostly wrong ones without any course correction. But it has hit another dimension, that High command cant even sense the turf being fooled by its own Leaders and Poll Agencies.
Panauti kaun?
Rahul Gandhi displayed arrogance and immaturity with his panauti remark which could emotionally stir people who are connected to astrology and that includes almost all Indians. Astrologers are cheaper version of Shrinks who give us self confidence and hope citing a distant planet which you can never see or visit. They just cure momentary depression with a simple ritual. How it influences us nobody knows but it’s like feel good cinema. Whole India including me watched the Cricket match. All are Panautis? Modi might be a Selfie freak but at least he works for victory. Also, Modi is like mythical Vaali who deserves to lose for his undoings but could only be defeated in a nuanced way, not on one to one personal attacks. The more he gets personally attacked the more he weeps in public meetings amplifying the insults to gain public sympathy out of it.
…not just Modi the person but the hagiography about him shapes electoral choices as well as the political culture of contemporary India. Initially, Modi drew attention for his demagoguery. But along with that, he began representing many other things and continues to evoke multiple images. It may be appropriate to sum up these images as constituting Hindutva. It incorporates victimhood and aspiration at the same time and has space for asceticism as well as hankering after material acquisition. It includes public display of ritual practices as religiosity and seeks to reconcile Brahmanical vision with the claims of “lower” castes. The current formulation of Hindutva also includes the normalisation of violence as righteous nationalism and approves the idea of a strong authority as good governance. Finally, the Modi hagiography incorporates ideas of development that tie up with welfarist paternalism and a strong nation.
Suhas Palshikar unravels the Modi enigma and why it gets difficult to fight. Modi is essentially not that everyman. But, he ensures the image with constant flow of Selfies and Photo-Ops generating an imagined closeness. He is polymorphic and represents everything, just like his ridiculous fancy dresses. RG might be totally right in calling him multi-headed Ravana, but he would do better with a backdoor strategy to tackle this Ravana rather lambasting him in public. Rama could not win over Ravana easily. When Rama knocked off one of Ravana’s ten heads it automatically grew back. So, Rama had to aim his Heart with a powerful Brahmastra. Maybe Mo-Sha’s Heart lies in the Hindi Heartland. The Brahmastra holds the key where the INDIA allies need to perform the ground work on what excites the Hindi Heartland masses other then Hindu pride. I could sense formation of INDIA and caste census certainly disturbed Modi, with his foolish knee jerk reactions, but INDIA is a non-starter, only bickering for last 3 months and Congress is mostly to blame. Apart from Brahmastra, Rama also sought the help of Indira’s Chariot driven by Matali. So, it was a teamwork. Congress needs to respect its allies and unbiased analytics rather get carried away by its opportunistic greed for power.
The best way to attack Modi is to ignore him totally while addressing the actual issues originated by him, of which there are plenty. He is just churning a PR Titanic out of India, not amrit. Yes, the same Ship which could never sink and even equipped with lesser life boats but still sank out of hubris. Ironically Titanic Captain resembles Modi, even if Modi could not match his integrity and character.
RG’s stupid Panauti remark will affect everyone unconsciously in a different way especially with BJP’s propaganda, just like Neech. Such remarks could have been at least dealt with a personal heartfelt apology, reducing the damage. Congress won whenever the elections was not about any personality but its People. Wonder why RG becomes so insensible just after simple wins. Also, his utterance is more of a symptom of opportunistic arrogance, as rightly pointed out by Akhilesh Yadav. Yadav might be a featherweight in MP politics, but Congress only did harm to INDIA alliance by denying few seats to Samajwadi party or other partners. Congress acted selfish on the whole emboldened by a petty win at Karnataka, misreading its win against a weaker BJP State unit for change of tides.
When yesterday becomes Once upon a time, in Politics
The Gandhis still seem to be basking on their Karnataka victory. There was no push towards any mass reachout, outsourcing their work to Agencies and Old Guards, happily taking a backseat. Contrast this with Mo-Sha’s propaganda blitzkrieg. In their power inebriated state, Congress don’t deserve a chance when they fight BJP even on half its strength.
When David assumed he is Goliath
Congress gets easily deceived on its own capabilities. All BJP needs is a single win to make them live in a bubble of hyped up wins everywhere. They can’t even read the ground situation properly or what exactly people want. How can they… when RG along with his cadre chooses to rest like Kumbakaran asking for Nidrasan instead of Indrasan? The same pattern occurred in 2018-19 elections too, where they got carried away by few state wins in 2018, throwing away any prospects of new coalition to dust. There are no clear ground surveys analysing their SWOTs. In contrast, Amit Shah seems to get his assessments right most often, though he blabbers something else in public. So, it boils down to lack of effort (for the lack of bitter words) and trusting untrustworthy election brokers trading their allegiance for money.
There are no Free lunches
The Freebie Politics got its limits. Odisha / Telangana model of governance works more towards incentives for agriculture empowering productivity rather providing empty handouts without any outcome. Congress got trumped by the same freebie politics when BJP announced matching welfare doles, after learning its lesson in Karnataka. Congress needs to innovate, shock and awe BJP to obtain an edge over them. Shivraj read his data right when he understood the economy is in doldrums with the rise of temporary wage worker, defying Modi’s (Adani) capitalist fanaticism.
When Kamal ensured Kamal’s rule
I do remember a Comedy where a Beggar will request alms from a Cart vendor. He will be soon joined by a Comic Cop looking for service fee from the Vendor. The Vendor very busy with his work will brush aside both of them asking to stay on the sides together. The Comic cop could not digest that he is being treated so equally like a Beggar. Then, the Beggar will retort to the Cop, “You are spoiling my Business. Go away!” You know what happens next, Jail, ED and IT comes to the scene. The Cart vendor is our Voter and I leave it to you to correlate the Cop and Beggar begging him.
Similarly, Congress displayed no novelty at all singing similar Hindutva chorus along with freebies, playing second fiddle to BJP. Congress banked on anti-incumbency factor alone in MP, just like Karnataka rather creating its own narrative. It’s still an easy shot to dislodge a weak Mamaji. Elections are not prayer to gods but to the people where god of election resides. So far Congress wins got more to do with BJP’s follies rather on their own merit, winning wherever people are desperate to dislodge BJP. Naturally, without any emotional stirs, People will see Mamaji as a better Bulldozer Bhajan singer, giving pocket money before he leaves with a sentimental bye.
All Play and No politics made Jack a Loser.
Congress does not have any novelty even in tweaking the media limelight. All electoral drubbings is followed by RG’s “humble acceptance” and then going back to his shell. It shows how congress has completely surrendered its fight just on few simple defeats. Only people like JR and his communication team try hard to communicate Congress’ stance. But it’s only a certain RSS guy who fumbles in elections (apt to his acronym) who gets all the limelight and blessings. When will RG broaden his coterie and start coming out of his shell? He was a little outgoing with the Yatra. Now he is back again crawling back to his shell, leaving the coterie to fumble and dance on errors. How can people trust such fused out leadership when he can’t even work 40 Hours per week, especially when the Mo-Sha leadership works 24/7 on elections.
When one door closes other door opens
But, Congress also got few things right in defeating BRS in Telangana. First of all this is an easy victory due to KCR’s hubris, but credit is due in not allowing BJP to grow in Telangana. It’s also a case of BJP focusing on Hindi belt rather wasting its energy at Telangana. This exposes BJP’s weaknesses of lack of manpower down south. Telangana is a progressive state not Cowbelt. Still, BJP is inducing communal polarisation just like Karnataka, which needs to be stopped. Congress need to milk their advantage in Southern states where BJP finds itself tough to build with toxic Hindutva, with very low success rate. KTR may easily comeback after five years if he played his cards well as Congress is known for its greedy corruption, laziness and arrogance when drunk on power.
Also, Congress might have did something right with its selection of new Leadership. Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo yatra might have also helped in mobilizing Congress in that region and identifying the right tiered leadership. More than freebies, Telangana win could be attributed to KCR’s attitude.
How Congress could turn around in 2024?
Personally, this loss might be bit difficult to swallow, but it’s a blessing in disguise. Because in 2018, Congress did almost a clean sweep, only to fail subsequently in 2019. Congress did not entertain AAP and other coalition partners and blindly believed Chowkidhar abuse will work out. They daydreamed of winning 2019 elections without anything to boast on the ground in terms of agenda or narrative, only ending themselves drowning in saffron nightmare.
So, I will reiterate this loss is essential blessing in disguise*.
* If they learn to implement the lessons learnt.
Give and Take is the Best political policy
Now congress will be more accommodative to its allies who could do a good job with Congress’ backup strength. Congress should treat 2024 as a test election rather getting egotistic on seat sharing. AAP could be that soft version of Hindutva, RSS is trying hard to groom by arresting Kejriwal, subsequently making him a Martyr. But as Karunanidhi told, there are no permanent friends or permanent enemies in Politics. They just need to make use of the ground situation wary of the Knife on their backs.
When the Holy Shadow chose to rest in shady-shell.
Maybe RG will learn a lesson or two in mass outreach and hopefully galvanise the cadre in Cowbelt and also revisit South to solidify his base. Gandhis are like the magic potion in Asterix comics for the cadre. They need to create regional Obelix-es who are bathed in the potion. There are reports that Yatra failed to create an impression in MP, but I would not buy that because, Yatra is not a Poll manipulator but a force multiplier for Congress. I would blame the State leadership for the dismal loss, not capitalizing on the energy. But bet that Congress State leaders are shameless and selfish enough to continue as if no damage happened. Congress may also understand the need to focus on Northeast seriously rather taking it for granted. But, time is running out. BJP may look for early election going for the kill after tasting blood in latest elections. Remember Vajpayee’s India shining campaign? Modi would not buy in like Vajpayee… but not everyone in BJP is Modi.
Elections are emotional!
Maybe Congress will also understand the need for an emotional agenda involving Social Justice / Identity politics where welfare of the economically backward remains the mainstay of 2024. Not just welfare doles and empty quota promises, but an action plan which could be implementable to stir the masses, on what they stand to gain as a group. Maybe it will realise Social justice is the only trump card, against powerful religion identity card, just like Indira Gandhi’s masterful “Garibi hatao!”. Poor Economy along with identity politics could be made relevant again as Politics is about recycling old win(e) in glamorous packages.
As progressives rightly say, Identity politics as anti-venom for Hindutva venom is not good politics or as a policy. But for a decade the opposition got reduced to a prisoner of circumstances where they are even afraid of posing with Minorities or dare talk about them like Modi afraid of naming China. While on the other end BJP is able to shore up their brahmanical agenda with laws and penetrating all institutions and even temples. BJP has so far beautifully ensured even the opposition to toe their line like Ayodhya issue or EWS quota. This is only possible by Deception, by penetrating the Congress think-tank. Maybe if the BBC- Congress’ acronym for Bhai-Behen company has its own merits, it’s also also easy to get manipulated as the decision lies on a simple dining table. I don’t know how much of decisions goes through rationale or analysis of data or hearing out the spectrum of views.
If you don’t like a Rule… Just Follow it.. Reach on the Top.. and Change the Rule
Adolf Hitler
Some potent agenda is needed in the short term to counter this fascist toxicity. If someone can dare, naming the negative pole of the Battery and propagate its essentialness, the opposition has its duty to stand for the righteous cause of the people representing the opposite positive pole.
There are theories around the inefficiency of caste politics citing various seats where tribals are major constituents. Tribals did not support Congress because of Baghel’s arrogance like Hasdeo movement and not because of RG’s OBC pitch. There are various factors for BJP wins and cannot be generalized as invalidation on any strategy. Such Opeds also shows how BJP is afraid of Congress choosing the caste empowerment path, watering down the agenda to nip it off the bud. There is a clever ploy by BJP to make Congress shy away from SC-ST and Backward classes empowerment and I leave it there.
EVM = Every Vote to Modi?
There are doubts on EVM, but it’s futile to talk about it as none of our Institutions have the spine to even consider or scrutinize it, knowing very well on its loopholes. The Major problem with the EVM is its technological invisibility, just like a Mobile phone used to count votes. Let’s imagine a Presidential election happening between Swiggy and Zomato on their respective apps, will you trust their results? No wonder BJP complained about 2009 results and Congress is complaining a lot just like their losing habit.
What makes the BJP so confident of a landslide victory in spite of all these adverse indications ? The clues, perhaps, are to be found in the manner in which the ground is being prepared: the constant refrain of 400+ seats, the slanted pre-poll surveys endorsing these estimates, and the amplification of these predictions by an obliging media. So that when the 400+ is declared after the polling, people would not question it because they had already been pre-conditioned to expect it.
Could it be that the BJP has a joker up its sleeve? The EVMs, perhaps? A national roll-out of the Chandigarh mayoral model, under the benevolent gaze of the Election Commission?
I really don’t know. But I am reminded of that intriguing quote from Arthur Conan Doyle: “When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” Think about it. And worry. – Avay Shukla
It’s not about people for or against EVMs, it’s just that EVM is a dumb servant of any ruling Government, with its complexities nobody can understand. The lingering question is not whether we could count and bank on EVM. The real question is whether we could count on the partisan Government, its servile EC throwing all EVM swaps under carpet as trial EVMs, corrupt bureaucrats conducting polls and stealing EVMs in their vehicles and crony Corporates invading EVM strong rooms with equipment for manipulation… all shamelessly operating on this dumb EVM. A case of too many Surgeons doing a democratic surgery on their whims and democracy ultimately dies. Maybe we could conduct a parallel poll on how many people believe in EVM or not and then decide just like developed countries does. And such votes should not happen in EVMs. Just (s)kidding on our Banana skin republic.
The least any democratic institution could do to save our democracy would be to increase the VVPAT tally ratio as its very difficult to hide or destroy material evidence. I will not be surprised if there are Judgements stating EVMs don’t have any sovereignty and will act as per Ruler’s wish. But, one can also wish that just if one Justice card stands tall in a free falling Domino, it could save a lot others at the back from falling down. I have heard about anonymous authors holding out their names to avoid fame or maybe infamy. But for the first time I am hearing about anonymous judgement, making me hope for good, as shame and ridicule are still working at some constitutional institutions. Its upto such institutions whether to stand up themselves restoring democracy with very simple audit like primary maths counting or confuse everyone with sealed envelope love letters from executive or anonymous judgements to reciprocate the love.
The way our Judiciary got dressed down to few Judges deciding on the fate of nation with a very simple allocation book called CJI’s Roster, one wonder if there is any justice of equality prevailing in the Judiciary itself. A resourceful article-14 post states, Contrary To SC’s Rules Of Assignment, At Least 8 Politically Sensitive Cases Moved To One Judge In 4 Months. It talks about how a certain Snow White of a Judge, supposed to be fairest of them all, ensures Mo-Sha rajya, like an one woman army. All while the CJI is busy lecturing on democratic values when he performs his own Roster assignments in a skewed manner, favouring a single Judge to handle all politically significant cases. So, the only rule working out in our Judiciary is the Rule Book of Mo-Sha, be in their good book or get scared of morning walks, like me wondering if my Bike will work tomorrow morning or go through raw molestation of clutch wire breakup, engine oil / petrol drain. Sometimes I wonder if a Mother of democracy could be so fragile that it turns to be a Banana republic with manipulating just few levers. Maybe, it’s easier to conclude we are just selfish about our own desires and prospects rather worrying about the whole picture or the well being of the Nation.
A hunter goes into the woods, and he sees this grizzly. Biggest he’s ever seen. He raises his rifle, and he fires. The bear falls, the hunter rushes forward, and to his surprise, there’s nothing there. There’s no bear, there’s no broken twigs, there’s no blood. And then suddenly, the grizzly throws this massive arm around his shoulders and explains, “You took your shot. You missed, so either I feast, or, and the choice is yours, I sodomize you.” Naturally, the hunter chooses life.
The next day, the hunter returns to the woods with a much bigger gun, and he spots the bear again. And he aims. He fires. The bear falls. The hunter charges. No sign of the bear, until the bear is standing beside him, saying, “You know the deal.” Indignity ensues.
The following day, the hunter treks back to the wood. This time with a bazooka. He sees the bear, lines him up in his crosshairs, fires. The recoil from the bazooka throws him backwards. And he looks up as the smoke’s clearing, and there’s the bear standing above him, arms crossed.
And the bear squints. “You’re not really out here for the hunting, are you?”
– The Killer Movie Quote
Maybe that’s how Bearish “Banana” Republics are born. People are so accustomed to the authoritarianism that Supremacy becomes the pleasurable law, beating fair justice and equality. Well these Jokes still can’t beat the Judgements spewed from the highest of Pulpits. How about a Judgement which summarizes an illegal act as illegal and then deems it legal with the same Judgement. Even a Church pastor giving confession will pale before these judge-mental elites. If you are not convinced please go through that anonymous Ayodhya Judgement of SC.
Urban myth has it that if you put a frog in a pot of boiling water it will instantly leap out. But if you put it in a pot filled with pleasantly tepid water and gradually heat it, the frog will remain in the water until it boils to death. Allegedly, the frog is not able to detect the gradual increase in temperature until it’s too late.
This allegory is frequently used in economics, business and marketing to point out that change has to be introduced gradually if it is to be successful. It also illustrates an aspect of human psychology: we tend to accept things that creep up on us slowly but steadily, even when they take control of our lives. But one day we wake up and find ourselves in boiling water.
Boiling frog syndrome may explain well how our society transformed from righteous outcries during Babri Masjid and octopus type communal riots tentacled out as consequence. To understand the toxic communal voyage Indians have gone through, India Today magazine has come up with beautiful illustrative covers (or should we say cover-ups?), to illustrate the same?
Let’s still be optimistic as hope is something BJP wants to kill as thoughtfully quoted by Richa Chaddha. At the time of writing, Communal riots are happening in Haldwani, Manipur with brutal fire at sight orders. BJP is wooing every small party who cannot be counted to a quarter of a finger for LS seats just to create a winning perception. The cost BJP gives for such acquisitions is amazing ranging from Bharat Ratnas to ED arrests. It is actually bending over backwards to split votes as much as possible, by scaring out Nithish Kumar, Kejriwal and Mamta Banerjee, proving that the only opposition to bet on future, to work against BJP is Congress. At least to me the INDIA game is not over still the date for withdrawal of candidates and maybe even beyond that. Only the the agile and wise could trump BJP and I believe they are more wiser than selfish.
BJP is also busy making Indians believe it will win 400 seats like a freak version of Goebbels, repeating the illogical lie again and again. Now BJP’s only hope of winning 2024 remains with repeating its success in Cow belt. No matter even if it increases its vote share, the seats in the cow belt will remain the same. It’s like a riding a horse inside a small pot to quote a tamil proverb, however speedily you ride you end with the same or lesser outcome of nothingness. For how long BJP could do its somersault in the Hindutva pot when the pot is actually dishing out just communal poison rather prosperity amrit without helping on the survival of the poor? Obviously, we are seeing a party at the top of the bell curve, sliding down either way, due to overdose of communalism or grim economy of suffering citizens, sparing nil hope for maxing out its seats. But BJP is playing the australian game of sledging and mental games, when even Australia has turned a sportive nation celebrating its loss to a West Indies so that Sports thrives rather one-up-man-ship.
On a similar vein, retaining the hope on the talismanic Judiciary, if and only if such standing tall supreme spines turn supine, the only way out for opposition is to go Atmanirbhar in elections – do a proper analysis of tricky seats, perform honest micro analysis and see the deviation / margin of probable wins in +/- 5%, design the campaigning for door to door influencing the cats on the wall, ensuring the EVM allocation algorithm now centralized for Central Government’s benefits is having any pattern of recurring models or making it manual allocation with shuffled raffles, and then taking care of the EVMs post election, like Just borns, to avoid EVM swaps as lot of EVMs are already mysteriously lost by innocent EC and safeguard it till it gets counted to deliver.
Paper ballots of the past kept our democracy sane, with technology we have have turned it insane. Recent Pakistan elections executed with paper ballots have upturned the mighty Army and corrupt Judiciary to favour Imran Khan in Jail, rather a puppet. India inventing its way to electoral destruction reminds me of an evidenceless joke where the US space program developed a sophisticated anti-gravity pen to work in space while the Russians used modest pencil serving the same purpose. We are in a similar route tinkering our democracy with sophisticated computers to perform a kindergarten level Job of selecting the best Ruler with a tick.
In these elections, there is another crisis. With the EVM patent of BEL and ECIL having expired, there could be a free-for-all in accessing and using this device. Even when the patent was operational, there was reportedly enormous pressure from the Prime Minister’s Office on the ECI to procure EVMs from favourite corporate entities. The ECI then had resisted, which may not happen now, when the EVMs themselves have become rogue devices. With the ECI maintaining complete secrecy, one does not know where the current set of EVMs has come from or their integrity levels.
VVPATs were introduced to resolve some of these matters, at least to some extent. The Supreme Court has laid down the norm to verify EVM votes against VVPAT slips in five randomly-selected booths in each Assembly constituency. And VVPATs are installed in every EVM, but not even one paper slip is counted and matched to verify the votes polled and counted before the results are announced. It has exposed elections to serious fraud.
Former Chief Election Commissioner SY Quraishi, during whose tenure VVPATs were introduced, has also suggested: “All the VVPAT slips may be counted. This will end the demand for return to ballot paper for good. Counting the VVPAT slips would be much like paper ballots, without return to the ballot papers as the VVPAT chits are much smaller in size, containing the name of only one candidate, unlike the big ballot paper with multiple candidates…. So, in the end there would not be much difference whether we count EVMs or VVPAT slips. Only that reversing the process—that is counting VVPAT slips—would enhance transparency and credibility of the electoral system….”
Seats with low margin of victories are best suited for EVMs to do their magic, unless Shah changes the modus operandi. VVPAT audit with increased sampling could ensure the integrity of elections. But when the Election Commission did not even even bother to tally their biggest blunder of mismatched Votes Registered Vs. Vote counted, the hopes remains as empty hope. EC even removed those mismatched tally web pages to bury the truth to graves. If EVMs get manipulated schematically on 50-100+ seats, it could tilt election results with major advantage to the manipulator. Most of the EVM malpractices occur when the opposition cadre is weak. No wonder Congress and Samajwadi party are losing their winning elections.
EVMs nowadays gets stored in RSS backed educational institutions with the blessings of EC with a month to manipulate at leisure, with the strong rooms located dubiously adjacent to opaque labs where Staff visit everyday. Ironically, EC is not patient enough to count VVPAT Slips even for few days to ensure the integrity, though it will conduct elections for months to ensure the ruler’s campaign goes well in phases mobilising their sparse resources in a phased manner and enough time to interact with EVMs post polling and prior counting. I have heard about a DMK Cadre person who even doubted ants entering the Strong room, but such things paid off for the regional parties fighting BJP, as they know they are done if caught red handed, like the Reliance Field engineers exploring EVMs in strong rooms. Only the paranoid could win over Mo-Sha, not laid back post-independence Zamindars.
The Chandigarh mayor election stands as a testament to how shamelessly and blatantly BJP stoops even for simple wins. The presiding Officer, seeing a clear win for Congress-AAP alliance, took to ill and cancelled the election, to give BJP time to buy the voters. When the election happened after the court’s nudge after a week, the Presiding Officer, an Officeholder of BJP marked the votes of Congress-AAP deliberately with ink markings to make them invalid and declared BJP as winner. Then he ran away with the ballot papers rather explaining why he invalidated or atleast displaying it to the concerned Parties with his forgery marks. In Chandigarh Mayor elections, the media was not allowed for the elections to control the narrative. As expected all leading media hailed the victory of BJP, a heist made in broad daylight with the Camera monitoring the proceedings, with the malpractice as a footnote. Now it’s in the domain of the Court and one can be assured this will go on till the term lasts unless otherwise someone took shame to it.
A similar situation of runaway democracy happened in 2019 LS elections where EC destroyed the VVPAT slips just after elections, when they are supposed to store them for 10 years for audit purposes. One of the important aspects of integrity established by tallying the votes registered vs Votes counted led to many disparities. EC had stopped tallying votes nowadays and even disabling the tallying webpages of 2019. Since the Chandigarh election had a small sampling it was easier to identify the vote manipulation. It will be very difficult to investigate the EVM as it has several vulnerabilities with the programming for symbols, bypassing the voting process through a Laptop interface and manipulating the count through RF signals. So much for the elections in Mother of democracy. You can count on EVMs handled by opposition leaders as there is a limit to which they will go. EVMs are dumb machines and their integrity is directly proportional to its handlers. Can you count on the same with the Adharmic Mo-Sha duo, incorporating intelligent chips in the guise of VVPAT and not even counting VVPAT slips as legit votes, bypassing the integrity?
The way with which BJP captured the Mayor seat soon after the election winner, was dramatic and laughable. As the opposition created ruckus shocked by the election chaos, BJP conducted the elections for subordinate posts, unfettered by the chaos ensued, where the BJP candidates got elected with 16-Love margins. Now if this goes to the Court, there will be a shameless adorning once revered Pulpit, who will ask the opposition why you did not vote, just like someone asked Uddhav Thackeray, “Why did you resign?” to grab his CM chair and gift it to BJP, now doing merry go round dabbling with the Speaker. Logically, the first Domino which enables the subsequent fall of events should be held responsible and scrutinised as null and void. But we got kangaroo Courts who cherry pick justifications in Mo-Sha’s favour, as was evident in Ayodhya / Maharashtra judgement. Maharashtra is going to vote this year anyway making the Courts even more redundant. Modi incidentally announced 500 crore funding for this magnificent bobble head shaking Doll, swaying as per his wish like an enamoured pet will do.
There is a glimmer of hope with recent SC judgements course correcting illegal Electoral bonds and upturning Chandigarh Mayoral polls in INDIA bloc favour. As PB Mehta points out its too early to celebrate. Mo-Sha is known for creating a semblance of democracy losing smaller fishes like Chandigarh mayoral polls, keeping SC and EC silent on similarly illogical and illegal EVM machinations at national scale. It gets even more grave with BJP’s practical mind-wash of 400+ seats without any evidence or logic to support it. BJP may manipulate Karnataka, Himachal, Jharkhand and other Congress bastions as it may plan to buy others as and when convenient. Their opinion polls are “setting” up the mood for a clean sweep unusual and unheard off before 2019, where BJP even win in minority dominated areas. The congress cadre need to check out for signal manipulations in EVM strong rooms, the movement of suspicious vehicles like mobile toilets or around Strong rooms especially emitting radiation and be cautious of EVM swaps especially during counting and transportation. There is a strong need for Congress to employ technical teams to keep EVMs secure on easy win constituencies around 120.They should also press for VVPAT tally if suspicious, rather happily obliging to illicit technology.
Electoral bonds could be a stop gap ban to BJP’s favour as its already slush with 5000 Crore of white money while Congress Bank accounts running two hundred crores gets frozen by IT. BJP will never disclose before elections by some hook or crook and may have plans otherwise after 2024 even if they lose. Electoral bonds Judgement is much delayed giving ample time for the Bank looters to even start their own Bank. So, we need to wait on observations on EVM from SC and EC to make sense of our democracy, if it really exist.
Rajiv Gandhi, with his brutal majority brought in two evil twins flourishing in current Indian politics – The Ayodhya issue and EVM. Maybe to equalize we got two Gandhi siblings currently enduring the brunt of their father’s mistakes. I sincerely hope the righteous siblings win this war and set things right. It’s also a testament to the present rulers how their own decisions turnaround to bite them later.
Stitching the caste umbrella to protect from Casteism.
Congress needs proper surveys to understand the social empowerment dynamics which has worked all along, rather going by blind opinions, including this blog if at all… It worked for them in 2004 when they made the election issue based rather against any Leader. They did not target Vajpayee, but punctured his “India shining” campaign, making people realise the hollow claims. The economic issues even more grave now. Nothing is shining nowadays for poor.
When BJP still stitches its caste umbrella meticulously, why it would nudge Congress not to do so? How BJP trumps is by also by categorizing people on economic demographics along with castes, like EWS quota, Farmer incentives, Vishwakarma schemes etc. Personally, I will not buy any theory which says what works for BJP will not work for Congress. That too when BJP shamelessly copied freebie politics from Congress to win over MP and Chhattisgarh. When BJP does Laadli Behana copying Congress / DMK it is a masterstroke, but when Congress does, it is cheap politics. But, this is to INDIA’s advantage because, BJP’s freebie promises could not be materialised by 2024 elections, disappointing the voters who trusted them, just like Congress suffered in 2019.
The era when politics was fronted by OBC figures such as Kalyan Singh, Uma Bharti, and Shivraj Singh Chouhan (all former Chief Ministers) can now be seen as an intermediate phase of the RSS project that is no longer necessary. Sangh ideologues also believe that Brahmins are an all-India caste, and figures such as the first BJP Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, had acceptability because of his social origins. – Saba Naqvi
It’s just that Congress does not know how to make Social justice and empowerment work yet, as it has not invested on ground work. Modi has masterfully categorized the economic demographics to Women, Farmers, Youth and Poor. For what Modi misdirected the opposition, he has been very careful with his CM and Deputy CM choices where there is a potent caste mix. Reading between the lines majority Deputy CMs are from brahmin community. There are no Farmer, Women, Youth or Poor CMs as choices. Only RSS CMs and DCMs. We can be assured there will be election gimmicks happening for each demography while stitching up caste alliances in the background. For INDIA simple assurances may not help, but need a clear plan of empowerment to attract masses with the risk of whatever they think, Modi could provide that in instant like an amicable Mamaji.
Congress erred badly in recent State elections by pushing the idea of OBC empowerment in parts that have large tribal populations (such as 32 per cent in Chhattisgarh) for whom this pitch would be meaningless, if not counterproductive.
The party seemed oblivious to the shift taking place in this voter demographic. And since the December 3 results of the Assembly elections, the RSS project of delisting Christian tribal communities (from lists of those entitled to reservation) has a new impetus even as reports have come in of vigilante actions against Christians in the Adivasi pockets of India.
The BJP/RSS strategic thinking involves seeing social categories from the perspective of ideological objectives. These are very clear regarding Christians, regardless of gestures such as the Prime Minister meeting members of the community on Christmas in 2023. The Sangh also understands that OBCs are not a bloc but a category made up of several castes that compete with each other and with Scheduled Castes and Tribes.
The BJP organisation has templates to create competitions within caste groups in ways that now make it challenging to present them as one entity in many parts of the Hindi-speaking States. Simultaneously and counter-intuitively, they also seek to unite all as Hindu by positing them against Muslims and Christians. In the recent Assembly elections, too, localised anti-minority narratives contributed to electoral success.
Congress may not be wrong in their OBC push but may not have stitched a meticulous vote share based on castes which work for a particular region. It has to be an all inclusive umbrella comprising of SC/ST rather being picky about OBCs. Caste is a poison, but it’s also one of the potent cards of identity politics making it an evergreen political tool. The real step towards social justice could partly lie with the Economically weaker section EWS category. Currently the quota is underutilised since it only caters to the elite classes who are already well to do. The EWS Quota is quite partial where it gets much lower than the cutoffs for OBCs / STs as a recurring pattern. It also unfairly favours the elite classes with 8 Lakhs income cut-off. This could be a potent issue if the INDIA alliance handles it smartly. INDIA could expose BJP as an elite Brahmin party by broadening the EWS Quota as casteless category, by including everyone irrespective of caste or religion, catering only to the poor economic factor. Caste census could be a double edged sword antagonising few sections. But making impartial and broad based economic quota could attract everyone around the INDIA alliance.
Saba Naqvi attributes the success of Congress in Karnataka to the whispers of Brahmin conspiracy below. Usually such identity tremors create a strong undercurrent of dissatisfaction and frustration, no matter how much Modi distracts the public with his snorkeling. BJP leveraged conspiracies and whatsapp whispers against Congress to win 2014- 19 and now its reaping what it sowed.
But there’s a deeper problem that this high command culture creates in states where the traditional BJP leadership is of an older vintage than what has emerged after Modi’s 2014 triumph. A top-down approach means that the equations established on the ground, based on traditional caste linkages and networks — predating the focus on Modi and the strategy of unleashing Hindutva foot soldiers — get unsettled. This is precisely what unfolded in Karnataka. Not only was there deep resentment at what was perceived as the undermining of leaders of the ‘old BJP’ belonging to the powerful Lingayat community, but it was also spoken about as a ‘conspiracy of Brahmins’, allegedly led by BL Santosh, the general secretary (organisation) of the BJP — the contact person between the party’s national leadership and the RSS — who is from Karnataka.
The whisper of this ‘Brahmin conspiracy’ proved fatal for the BJP in a state where all caste groups are conscious of their rights and entitlements. This was all the more damaging as the Congress was playing the social justice card, and Siddaramaiah, its most charismatic mass leader, openly spoke about the humiliation of the Lingayat leaders of the BJP. The Congress fielded 46 Lingayat candidates; 37 won. The BJP fielded 69; just 15 won. The last-minute pre-election rejig of reservation quotas by the BJP to offset caste restiveness also backfired. The Congress, conversely, got support from all castes and communities.
BJP was quick to remove BLS from Karnataka. But it’s a temporary setup. Once BJP+RSS feels the need for OBC/ ST leadership is over, they will switch back to BLS type elite leadership, like they did in Rajasthan and Madhya pradesh. Caste is a potent weapon for INDIA alliance, as BJP has cleverly manipulated the backward classes and tribes with an unfair Quota, to favour its upper class demography, the core of RSS. All social engineering are a pure white lies engineering discontentment and rifts between castes to reap electoral benefits.
But, what Modi cannot provide and INDIA could utilise?
Modi cannot provide employment for the youth. But for the youth to believe the new INDIA Alliance could open the employment doors needs efforts and convincing them on personal platforms. Social Media ads INDIA alliance need to convert them as Volunteers and Booth agents for their polling effort as an answer to BJP-RSS Juggernaut.
Modi cannot provide schemes and incentives for Farmers but he could increase the quarterly incentive. INDIA alliance could work on teaching them how to fish rather giving them the Fish and subsequently engage with Farmer societies for their thoughts and buy-ins, like cold storages, Direct Farmer markets and farmer friendly laws to empower this major demography.
Modi cannot empower Blue collar workers with worker friendly laws as his ideology is influenced by the Richie’s Riches who go to any extent to make him win. Currently, the industrial laws are crony friendly with long hours and no liability with the Owners. Each worker subclass like Drivers, Delivery workers, Factory personnels have their own issues. INDIA alliance could come up with Group Insurance schemes and Family Health insurance schemes along with minimum wages. US’ Democrat Party has a long history of empowering the Workers progressively and thriving on it. It may affect SMEs but could be incentivized for a progressive change.
Likewise, the labourers of unorganized sectors like Drivers, Delivery Personnels and gig economy workers provide a lot of potential to tap. All Modi Government bothered so far is to levy hefty GST on them. They need better government help like Health Insurance and laws to prevent abuse.
Modi cannot provide empowerment to the Women as its against Sanatan dharma. INDIA alliance has good chances on poking Mo-Sha on this front. They have great leaders in Mamta Banerjee to take this campaign forward. BJP may come up with monthly stipends as their trump card foe 2024. The opposition need to make people realise how tough it is to be realised. Afterall Adani is not going to donate them monthly money. But taxes collected from the poor in the guise of Petrol, LPG, Utilities, Bank surcharges and taxing grocery / veggies. In any case, this is a tough preposition to counter, with unsustainable implementation, INDIA could trump with the monthly income hikes and special doles for rural and urban circuits, like Shivraj Chouhan did with Laadli Behana scheme. Congress’ 2019 NYAY scheme could not propel further due to lack of outreach. But in 2024, BJP might have already built a PR platform on monthly stipends before campaigning and it will be easy for the opposition to capitalise on top of it.
More than doles, the Party which provides an aspirational vision wins… like employment / stipend for a family member of large families, self help groups for unemployed members, upskill workshops with stipends, tax free education and reduction of school fees with slabs, beefing up panchayat funds, Panchayat level gig worker employment for few graduates in the villages enabling government amenities at door step or infrastructure maintenance, allowances for priests across all religions as they are mass speakers, toll free highways, streamlining fuel prices commensurate with international crude prices, subsidies for EVs, increased spend on Healthcare and education, addition of quasi government staff on health care and education sectors to stimulate employment, tax sops for MSMEs encouraging more employment, uplifting consumption of non-essentials like toys, fashion and electronics, containing inflation with surplus essentials stimulating the supply chain. All these are not new schemes, some visionary parties like AAP / DMK have already accomplished them.
Modi cannot provide equal status to the SC/ST/OBC as Brahmins in education or employment. He can only bring in elite friendly EWS Quota. If INDIA alliance could break this up with a novel working mechanism, tweaking the EWS Quota to encompass all castes and religion, in Public Service and other professions, with coaching centers and Institutions dedicated for the backward classes, BJP can never counter that, just like caste Census. Why not IIT/IIM/REC for Backward classes? Why not world class Kendriya / Navodaya Schools for economically backward? Why not Meals with eggs for Students? Why not stipends for economically backward students? Why not Child nutrition Kits to curb malnutrition? There are coordinated efforts to make INDIA alliance believe that caste issues will not work, but the back bending efforts of BJP reveals exactly otherwise.
Modi’s regime reality is that there are plenty of problems. But we don’t have a “Working” opposition who could hear them out and tend to resolve. RG conducts surprise outreach visits and floats various brilliant ideas. But unless concerned people hear about novel schemes and convey their feedback, its of no use. All the above schemes, need voters’ active participation or atleast as a signature campaign, involving civil societies and Unions, acting as pre-voting exercise.
The Weakest link of INDIA caught between Dragons and Draculas?
Maybe Congress will realise they are the achilles heel in the INDIA coalition with BJP targeting Congress on its direct fights, burdened by its poor organizational strength and lack of outreach so as to start working on giving a tough fight.
If you are not convinced, just watch Mahua Moitra fighting it tooth and nail. She is not even seeing BJP as a worthy opponent rubbing salt on their inflated egos. The only fault of Mahua Moitra is that BJP Parliamentarians cannot understand what she speaks when she spits fire like dragon in Angrezi. Funnily, by the time they figure out what she has spoke, the damage is already done. I usually enjoy her animated speech not just for her fieriness, but the reactions of the treasury benches, usually of bewilderment, like watching a bengali horror movie in english without hindi subtitles. So, the BJP draculas, who could not find faults on her better than her lone Louis Vuitton handbag, found a way collaborating with her jilted ex ( maybe this ex guy understood her fiery speeches consuming lots of gelusil), to get her out of the Parliament. It was heartwarming scene when Sonia Gandhi embraced her in support against injustice meted out to her.
Moitra was part of Congress earlier, and its leadership could not digest such mavericks like Banerjee or Moitra. Congress needs such rabble rousing mass leaders, unafraid of BJP, mobilising crowds like they brought out Revanth Reddy.
Maybe Congress will realise this is the best time to experiment with new promising result driven Leadership across States, for Union elections, where they remain accountable for their decisions and mistakes with proper removal from posts in this cut throat political world. Anyways they got nothing to lose and stand to gain on their adventures. Losers don’t get any respect in BJP too even if they switch. Maybe Congress will come up with logistical incharges for a group of constituencies and reward them duly on their wins.
The Art of Deception
Maybe Congress will understand its not the time to be afraid of Prashant Kishor’s brilliance but to make use of him in the cow belt. There are zero reasons why Congress should be afraid of PK even if he is assumed as BJP spy or a monster who could gobble them up. Because, no one else is doing the Analyst job properly. Praveen Chakravarthy did not do a great Job despite earning RG’s trust. Sunil might not have the conviction of PK when it comes to winning seats or even speak the truth.
Sunil tends to go easy with the congress second tier leadership and then blame after losses that he did not get a free hand playing his own wretched political game. DMK was clever enough to replace Sunil with PK and keeping him on leash to taste its assembly success. Some do it for Job satisfaction / conviction while others do it for money and could sway either way with an easy postmortem, killing their own client’s future for their fortune. Sunil can’t simply wash off his hands that the Surveys are biased to please his masters, but he does it gleefully with his media leverage. Wonder why would Modi friendly Media support him to the hilt? Sunil works for Congress opposition ADMK in Tamilnadu but will support Congress in other States? PK was one person who had the conviction to analyse and predict his work in West Bengal to an extent, just like Amit Shah, though Shah blabbers on his wins and simulate opinion / exit polls to his advantage. Congress needs a Shah-equivalent of analytics Head, if at all they think of winning.
Mincemeat Swallowed…. Rod, Line and Sinker….
Operation Mincemeat Movie.
PK’s secret recipe for Cow Belt success.
Maybe I am obsessed with PK, but he rightfully holds a track record which also comes with a baggage of adamancy / headstrong nature. Hopefully somewhere the opposition and PK shed off their inhibitions and meet eye to eye for the betterment. PK has come up with a teaser for Opposition’s recipe. Actually Modi is not even part of it. Modi is just a smokescreen, who hides the hard working RSS-BJP Kartas and Mastermind Shah. This is not to underestimate Modi, but RG is certainly taking the distraction path of attacking a smokescreen for no outcome so far.
“The four reasons BJP got votes and won poll in three States are: first, Hindutva which is their [BJP] ideology; second is the new Nationalism; third is BJP’s financial and organisational muscle power, and the fourth is Lavarthi Yojna (beneficiaries programmes) of the party.” This is PK’s understanding.
To me this makes a lot of sense, like political warfare is always about hitting vulnerabilities. If one hits the Army tank on the front / rear rather from the above or base, he/she is more likely to be dead on the ground soon. Modi is that iron cladding in BJP’s Army tank. Their vulnerabilities are welfare of the poor as they are inherently business minded.
What’s in a simple Survey? Everything.
One of the age old techniques Amit Shah leverages is seeding the poll campaigning using Surveys. Not BJP’s Surveys but with the surveys done by Congress Team. How?
In Rajasthan, one of the Questions Congress Campaign team asked is – do the voters believe flipping the roti is essential? This actually means do you want to change the State’s rule every 5 years, like if you don’t flip the roti it gets charred. It subconsciously reminds voters that Gehlot needs to be cooked well in hot soup. Wonder how they end up with these kind of ingenious surveys, throwing mud on their own head. I do remember feebly on such instances of surveys in 2019 too, deceiving voters as Congress team while campaigning for BJP. Here is an Op-ed which proudly states why Rajasthan lost because Rajasthan like to flip rotis. Why can’t they conduct flip roti type surveys in Madhya Pradesh? Of course they lost Rajasthan because of such surveys reaching individual mindspace while broadcasting campaigns in National Geographic with limited viewership. The moment you make an act like ticking or signing on, you are making the individual more closer to that voting button. They could have framed questions in a way the Voters think if voting Modi again and again is worthwhile in 2019. Hmm… Congress never learns a lesson. Please Survey that too!
Deciphering the Shah-nakya phenomenon
Let’s decode the Bade Miyaan and Chote Miyaan of Indian politics… Bade Miyaan claimed 60 crore moved out of poverty and Chote Miyaan claimed 25 crore out of poverty in India. By their claims guess the so called rich climbed out of poverty and are collecting their meagre food ration coming in a Rolls Royce. Apart from being conjoined twins on the Lie Drama Opera, there is a lot more covered under the media gloss. The beauty of their Governance is afterall media deep calibrating headlines and tweaking perception rather governance.
Bade Miyaan Amit Shah imagines himself to be a sha-meless Shah-nakya. The real Chanakya might have leveraged deception and prajatantra, but he was always true to his people. Simply put, Chanakya was not a Fascist ruling by killing/fooling his own people or trying to stab everyone on their backs, assuming that’s intelligence. But Shah is, just like his criminally criminal laws touted to decolonise Indian law, in reality desiring for brutal state power. Shah has not created Arthashastra but Anarthashastra. Shah has declared BJP will work on adding 10% vote share from 2019. By the usual gap he exhibits between his statement and actual reality, one could safely infer INDIA Bloc and BJP will have a 10% vote share difference. Shah is just trying to keep his campaign positive to beat anti-incumbency.
Let’s take up recent incident around dramatic Parliamentary session to understand Shah. It started with a terror-like incident with an unemployed gang throwing up colour gas canisters in parliament. Unfortunately, for BJP there was no Minority involved and all of them seemed to be Bhagat Singh Bhakts. So they could not politicise around religion on this incident. Who gave the passes for the supposedly terror team? It was a BJP MP with a dubious toxic background. Miserable own goal. Where did the incident happen? At the new Parliament touted by Mo-Sha as the best in security. So. Shah’s another template of Blame-it-on-Nehru political door also got shut down. So, Shah-nakya was pressed for an answer to the terror incident at the altar of democracy Modi bowed and kissed to enter and strangulate it afterwards.
When Modi assumed office, he kissed the steps of Parliament as he entered it on May 20, 2014. It was a nod to the sanctity of Parliament. But it turned out to be him kissing his own power. For Parliament without Opposition is simply the unbridled power of the executive. He was kissing, not a representative institution, but a Parliament that now rests entirely in the personal of the leader. – PB Mehta
With the above quote, one could understand the attack was not on Parliament but on Mo-Sha for all their lusty greed for power accompanied with inefficiency of their ruling and circumventing their weaknesses with election time prowess. The mishap is a symptom of uprising that cannot be kept closed with an executive lid, however they may manipulate EVMs and public opinion. No amount of oppressive criminal laws can keep the rulers safe from their misrule even if they are able to restrict the opposition to remain lame and maimed. There are various other symptoms too like wrestlers uprising against the establishment. Vinesh Phogat was the foremost wrestler to have politically campaigned for Modi in twitter, setting the trend for sportspersons to lobby for the Government. Now, she is pushed to leave her state honours in Modi’s Kartavya (Duty) Path, doing her duty. This trend will continue but the shameless cannot understand people or even their stature with their mindset of a fake chit fund company Organizers looting till the greed of people could be milked.
“A few days ago, 2-3 youths jumped inside the Parliament House, we all saw, they came inside and spread some smoke. All the BJP MPs ran away. They call themselves nationalists but we saw how afraid they were…” – Rahul Gandhi
Maybe BJP MPs suddenly recollected – “We know what we did this decade!”. Or maybe it was an evacuation drill for 2024.
With the parliament mishap, Shah already had his hands full to pass dubious laws before he loses power. Shah’s major blessing is on brilliantly turning his adversities and crisis to opportunities. So he threw away Chanakya hat to wear Professor hat leveraging the moment to bulldoze the lame laws by suspending all his pupils who sneezed or chatty in the Classroom err… Parliament. Shah being a sharp shooter as publicized by himself, even suspended an MP who was absent that day, shooting himself in the dark. Imagine a Chanakya-esque Professor taking class in the dark in a lone room. Its a case of class session completed and all failed in democracy subject. Will you still call him Chanakya?
As the opposition cried out against unjust and irrational suspension, Shah brought in a Part-time Farmer who kept mum during Farmer Protests like a Dunki escaping to his Farm lands for greener pastures, a sudden casteist who again forgot his brethren suffering during farm law protests and inflation, in all actuality a full-time-Lawyer who never forgot to collect his fee utilising cash counting machines, now kept busy cracking stupid Jokes occupying once esteemed seat.
The President of vices got deeply pained on a Juvenile mimicry by a suspended MP, as if he has never watched his own comic show in Parliament. He invoked not his legal prowess or constitutional prowess, but his petty casteist mindset along with Farmer demography as he was growing literal Money Plants during his Lawyer career, without doing an iota of help for Farmers or his Brethren even when in power. If you still want to scrutinise the opportunistic leverage of the caste used for his post retirement career, ask the wrestlers belong to the same caste who brought in glory, got ill treated by his government. These are chronic Liars utilising lie as glue to stabilise their positions and invoke identities at opportunistic convenience to further their career, but can’t hear the suffering of the poor. All they can hear is Humming noise of machines consummating with currencies. The previous line is not out of hatred or jealousy but on deep pain, how far few individuals otherwise with a light and good hearted banter, barter themselves for few incentives. Hitler’s fascism grew on such people as Hitler encouraged people with incentives who helped his unjustified agenda, thereby making his atrocities a norm and habit forming. Hitler’s history would have been different and great if his critics had their say and a little way. BTW, if BJP calls INDIA Bloc as dramatic Touring Talkies how will you call a clown in saffron robes winking before cameras even in his supposed deep meditation in a cave on election day? Prime Mimic?
“I am a married man for more than 45 years. I am never angry!”
Jagdeep Dhankar
Ofcourse Marriage helps us to play as victims well, to save ourselves from further blows. Seems practice made Opoman perfect. OK… When the opposition acted clueless on how to react, Shah silently passed his Animal Farm laws and spectrum heist as law without a tinge of opposition. Opposition is still protesting on their suspension and forgot about the new laws and the grave terror incident. This is the root-cause of all our evils in our democracy. We keep going on a detour after detour that we forgot where we come from and where we are going. Ideally, the opposition should have kept their cool and aimed the Government on the grievous terror issue. Instead, they played to the tunes of the Ruling party, pressed to react to a mimicry show as if we are living in a parody land. They ideally should have ignored such immature catcalls as undeserving of such distinguished high Chair.
The best political weapon is the weapon of terror. Cruelty commands respect. Men may hate us. But, we don’t ask for their love; only for their fear.
Heinrich Himmler
Unfortunately, we don’t get too many quotes from Himmler, the aide of Hitler. He is man of action, intrigue and deception, preferring swords to words .
The OpoMan comics and clueless opposition.
From the other perspective, wonder what makes the opposition to create ruckus. Should they blindly copy the BJP of Jaitley / Swaraj times or pave their own path of capitalizing the session to attract public, as they are already deprived of mainstream communication channels? They could have pressed Mo-Shah to submission with no confidence motion or other provisions? Or suspension is designed to avoid such pressures? Modi hinted on disciplined Parliamentary proceedings soon after the election victories making one wonder why to invoke Parliament while celebrating election victories. So it was a carefully laid out trap awaiting for weeks? Why can’t the opposition read between the lines of Sha-nakya moves even after working with him for a decade? Why not the opposition come up with a gameplan with a Mock Parliament of sorts to debate on those oppressive laws getting passed without debate, that is if they are serious about People’s welfare rather on their own suspension? Why can’t they innovate to turn tables on such shock and awe crisis a predictable pattern of Shah’s BJP? If they can’t tackle BJP now then When? They will not have any answers because the Opposition is selfish and they did not bother about the draconic laws but only on their own selfish future and meaningless suspensions. If one cant fight a dictatorial law, what is the use of an elected MP sitting in Parliament, with lakhs of votes and beliefs? Rather doing dumb mimicry at parliament stairs why can’t they just sit at home enjoying BJP Dhoklas.
Wonder who cares for a below standard mimicry show when the democracy itself is getting swindled. If the Lawmaking MPs don’t ask questions about the illegal laws resorting to theatrics, who will resist them. Why should the responsibility for resistance to whimsical laws always comes down to People like CAA, Farm Laws and now Spectrum Heist passed by hijacking democracy. Instead of wondering about all these, we see a seasoned Nitish kumar, nursing his own petty ambitions, snubbing his own allies to learn Hindi. Can this Kursi Lover assure us if all our country’s ills can be solved with everyone talk, walk and fart in Hindi? Where is that Kumar who resigned on a grave train accident shocking us all with his mighty integrity? Should we search for him in underground tunnel, corresponding to his present stature? Contrast this with Pawar’s simple and powerful statement on willing to sacrifice for the sake of democracy. Don’t know if he meant for others to sacrifice for his sake, but every Party’s evergreen Valentine might be nursing his own ambition, like Van Damme cruising by standing in between trucks, traveling towards Delhi. But there is a lot of wisdom in wait and watch approach on PM candidate with interesting rumours to keep the pot simmering. It’s not about Dhankar or Kumar occupying supreme constitutional position or how much money they amass makes them supreme beings… It’s about how highly they are placed on their human values preserving the integrity of such high positions. Hmmm.
Rather getting involved in meaningless petty squabbles, the opposition needs thick skin, tough nerves, rock solid unity and laser focus if at all they want to tackle the criminal duo who will not hesitate to go to any lengths to secure another win at the expense of people. Shah may even arrest few more promising leaders not limited to AK to rattle the opposition and may travel further to demoralize the opposition. He loses everything if he loses 2024, literally battling a war of… err.. for securing his lifetime freedom. He is just going all out blazing all his guns. Opposition must have a gameplan with a mature PR rather reacting to Shah’s killer antics.
Strangely, what transpired in the winter session of parliament reminded the author of the Australian cricket team led by Steve Waugh. The great cricketer has admitted that simply winning a test series was not enough for him and his mates. Their single-minded focus was intimidation and the mental destruction of rival teams. Perhaps Narendra Modi and Amit Shah have taken a leaf out of that book. – Sutanu Guru
Perhaps we might have won recent Cricket World cup if BCCI could appoint its own Umpires along with manipulating the pitch to add to Shoaib Daniyal’s analogy. That’s what Shah is implementing the lessons learnt in Cricket in upcoming election, by altering the selection panel of Election Commissioner by omitting unbiased Chief Justice with a Cabinet Minister. Daniyal also compares the opposition less laws as Batsman scoring runs by keeping fielders out of crease. I have heard of Game changers but now witnessing Rule changers like street smart immature Kids used to do in Gully cricket, to win at any cost.
But, so far the opposition do not even have the patience to do a joint media conference to display their bonhomie or a Public Rally. They seem like a motley group who still need a lot of ice breaking to even say “Hi” to each other. They are so full of headstrong egos that they need more lessons on defeat than Congress, without even a semblance of common minimum program to counter BJP’s narrative. They are treating INDIA as a cake where their allies are supposed to feed them more than they could chew. To surmise, they are just making Modi look invincible by dancing to Mo-Sha’s tunes.
“I would like to tell you one thing. Mahatma Gandhi was the mahapurush of the last century. Narendra Modi is the yugpurush of this century”
Jagdeep Dhankar
I am deeply pained as a Human, not on the basis of my Profession or on my Birth background on the above quote. How can someone shamelessly compare one who got us freedom and the other bringing in brutal state power as criminal Laws? Just to keep cash registers ringing at home? Awful!
Traversing Bania Modi’s Path… from Black money politics to Black Monkey-ish Shock and Awe Governance
“I always believe that when a king is a trader, his people turn beggars,”
Nitin Gadkari
The above quote will be the major reason for BJP’s failure in Mo-Sha era. I am not against BJP or any other Party. I am just against Mo-Sha’s transactional and criminal BJP. Their loss will not be about Opposition or any other demographic factors. One could observe a fine thread of Merchant Government with a profit motive in all their ventures with Modi Government. The schematic destruction of railways with elitistic highly priced Vande Bharat trains and reducing unreserved compartments for the poor, the price hikes on Petrol and making a killing out of it, touting GST as tax sucking engine rather for economic simplification or growth catalyst, irrational fee on poor at banks to cover for their NPA for cronies and the list goes on and koud of Bania Modi’s puerile intentions.
The problem with a merchant mindset is that it views the poor and unfortunate derisively, that they are are not working hard like frying pakoras, just like asking a lame man to walk on his own, rather giving a holding hand or walking stick. It’s a pity the Government thinks MSME will survive with small loans. Unless the consumption increases the industry cannot survive. The consumption will only increase with booster shots to the poor either directly or indirectly. Currently, inflation and reduced demand has made everyone’s life challenging.
Common Man’s uncommon struggle.
Let me take the use case of myself. If at all I had the present BJP Government during my professional studies, I could not have simply afforded it with irrational hikes. Empties may argue otherwise, but then Government ran education as charities with subsides where students paid not even 3% of their education costs. I do remember the Government Institution stood with the students rather sparing seats for a Congress MLA recommendation. The MLA went on to build his own group of colleges with his Con-Funds. Can we look for similar education heads of integrity in New India, where every influential position is filled with RSS goons without a tinge of merit? Even if I struggled to complete my graduation in New India, employment is like chasing an Unicorn in a weak economy. All I would have got is a gig work to deliver goodies for the top 10% or driver Job with lower wage not commensurate with the merits. Again if any empties are not convinced they should refer to the median wage data for professionals and graduates. The present reality has also made me think twice to spend money on clothing a major MSME industry. The grocery prices has shot to the skies on staples like pulses, veggies, rice and atta, making me reduce recreation activities like Dining, Movies and Travel, other major MSMEs around tourism and recreation. I was using my savings from abroad to run my family, as Modi rightly said one got to be fit to be be Superhit else will only get hit. I don’t gamble on Mutual funds or stocks preferring FDs whose interests rates have halved forcing me to dissolve the deposit for expenses. Earlies FD rates were catering at least for the inflation. Now it’s not even worthwhile to save. So, the Government has not spared me on daily activities.
It’s very difficult to pass a day without remembering the Government’s excesses on Shopping, fuelling, Banking, education fees, Utility fees, Insurance… what not. Everything has been impacted due to inflation and GST is added mercilessly on top of it. Government’s unchecked liberal allowances and NPAs for the super rich entrepreneurs only aggravates the pain of poor and middle class. The Government acts as gleeful partner in crime for all payments as Great Sadist Tax – GST. But have they ensured all billionaires and Corporations pay their GST properly? No. Despite greedy squeezy taxes, my road has stay the same with beautiful potholes where Modi promised honey and milk will flow through, in reality replaced with flood and sewage. Are we able to reserve lower middle class Berths in trains like before Why have they shrunk those compartments? Even if I plan much in advance, my train stinks the same. My train food is expensive but as good as what we deliver from other orifice.
Keeping with the philosophy of economic compassion, Rama would have had a graded spectrum by which he would have collected the most taxes from the rich and the least from the poor. But the Narendra Modi government has done the exact opposite in its tenure. Out of every Rs 100 collected as taxes over the last decade, the Modi government took roughly Rs 42 from the poor, Rs 26 from the middle class, and Rs 26 from the rich. For context, out of every Rs 100 the Manmohan Singh government collected, it got Rs 28 from the poor and Rs 38 from the rich. – Praveen Chakravarty
There are few positives too. The UPI is handy and it has its origins to UPA, though popularised by BJP. My Mother’s pension support is seamless with digital innovations, though once I was denied pension squeezed to forsake it, as even jawans are not getting pension why freedom fighter’s spouse should still get it and had to work hard, demanding it as my Mom’s right. The IT has simplified and improved on filing too, much like IRS, though I suffer the legacy IT’s duplicate PAN issues. I got a duplicate PAN due to name mistake and now the Aadhaar could not be validated because my First name mismatch. Aadhaar got initials as surname while PAN has full surname The deeettaailllleddd rant is also because I have plenty of time at my disposal due to lack of revenue generating work. At least let me make use of the time curse the Kartas.
If you wish the sympathy of the broad masses, you must tell them the crudest and most stupid things.
Adolf Hitler
I am also from a Bania background. But Congress and Vajpayee’s regime taught me how far Government’s benevolence goes by uplifting so many from lower middle class or poor background. It taught me a valuable distinguishment between selfless Government and selfie Modi. Let’s consider hypothetical case of Bania Modi’s theories: What happens if everyone start selling and eating Pakoras kindled by Modi’s entrepreneurial nudge. Maybe we will ready to make some fuel out of nala gas vented by ourselves, Modi’s yet another sick brainchild. Modi has always exposed himself on his lack of depth in his off-script interviews. But it’s amusing, someone considers Pakora selling as “the employment”.
While celebrating the 7 crore people who will be Affluent India, we should also reflect on the pitiable status of three times more Indians (22.8 crore) who are in poverty. It is not difficult to identify the poor:
The 15.4 crore active registered workers under MGNREGS who were promised 100 days of work in a year but were allotted in the last five years, on average, only 49-51 days; Most of the beneficiaries who were given an LPG connection but could afford, on average, only 3.7 cylinders in a year;
India is being pulled away from the idea of a social and economic democracy. The Opposition parties and the media may not be vigilant but the poor and middle classes — the 93 per cent — are watching and waiting. – P. Chidambaram.
Let’s take ‘Capitalism always wins’ theory of the RW. As per them per capita income has increased. Contrast this with the median wages getting lower than before. We are among the top five in world’s largest economies but in terms of per capita we rank 139th among the world. So, who hoards the riches? It’s not the Farmers economy but Hoarders economy where fat Brokers / Traders earns the most as Farmers don’t have Direct to Market options. It’s not Gig workers economy but Middlemen Entrepreneur economy who accumulate wholesome profits as commission, throwing breadcrumbs to the actual worker. So, the income goes to the top 10% as profits and poor are getting poorer as evident by the shrinking FMCG consumption. So Dalal PM, despite play-acting like Dalai Lama of the poor, has only helped select few on the Dalal street. Modi views any goodies to the poor as bad freebie / revdi economy only to budge meekly when they are looking for votes in exchange of money schemes like Farmer incentives.
It is not even the case that the Modi government has increased the share of overall taxes collected, which can perhaps justify some of these shifts away from people to corporates. India’s overall tax collections by the Union and states has been constant at roughly 17% of GDP over the last two decades. So, neither has the Modi government collected more taxes through demonetisation and GST as promised, nor has it endeared itself more to people through tax revenues and expenditure management of the economy. – Praveen Chakravarthy
It is not truth that matters, but victory.
Adolf Hitler
Economically, we are stagnant without any fillip for better economy. Also, the only change that happened over a decade is discouraging to commoners. BJP have just shifted the taxation burden to the poor and middle class while incentivizing the rich just for the sake of staying rich. The Rich has not contributed much to the economy except for sweetest words reserved for Modi.
The criminal Company’s colonial extravaganza
If Modi is a hardcore Bania, Shah is criminal extremist not an Hindutva-wadi. He has rammed through so many laws – Kashmir abrogation, CAA, Farm laws not through straightforward means or by listening to rational dissents, one of the main reasons for the failure of all those laws. The problem with such criminal mindset is, it adapts stealth and deception as weapon. It does not wish to persist on long term benefits but more on loot and escape mode. It does not dwell on any ideology or welfare but on sheer success, like passing exams by copying. It just cannot afford to lose as the loser obviously loses all ending up in reverse Karma. It works on shock and awe mode like a pickpocket distracting our attention to perform his act rather on honest consensus.
If you want to call such pickpocketing, distracting, criminal minds as Chanakya… fake orgasmic pleasure will be yours. The part of the problem with opposition is not that they can’t complete with Shah on his intelligence, but they cannot equate themselves to his criminality.
The receptivity of the masses is very limited, their intelligence is small, but their power of forgetting is enormous. In consequence of these facts, all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans until the last member of the public understands what you want him to understand by your slogan.
Adolf Hitler
Its very difficult to understand this siamese twin type on who influences whom. Buts it’s safe to assume the Government turned more authoritarian with Shah’s inclusion to Parliament. Modi’s first five years was dedicated to polarisation and next five years seems to have heavy shades of Shah, dedicated to heavy handed oppression in the guise of Hindutva. Scratch through the pixels of Modi’s Photo-op one could see Shah’s signature of constructing a mythical figure different from reality just like Shah’s hyped up speeches Vs reality. Modi is the deceptive veil hiding the giant election juggernaut helmed by Shah as weapon of distraction. The opposition will earn nothing targeting the sitting decoy duck – PM. He is just an imaginary hologram built carefully to capture votes. Ask PM on any single issue there will be no answers. The only Press Conference in Modi’s ten years of PM-Ship was answered by Shah while Modi was sitting along humming Delhi’s Kaala Bandhar.
Double Engine or Double Assault Governance?
It’s the last five years of double assault of criminalism and corporatism by the Mo-Sha duo looks more ominous to BJP. It’s a pity BJP is sidelining sensible leaders like Gadkari, Rajnath, Shivraj..et al. MP voted for Shivraj’s welfarism not for BJP, but Shah is more interested in planting his own loyal minion afraid and locked to Shah’s shadow. They may reap what they sow in all three states in 2024 if Congress plays its cards well and willing to tear that veil and penetrating beyond.
As Gadkari precisely predicted, end of Mo-Sha Government we all citizens will be turned to Beggars in one way or another where the Government sucks even our petty alms, like Rajapaksa’s Sri Lankan model, which never bothered about dissent ramming through policies and laws and now cant even enter Sri Lanka, due to same policies backfiring on them. But “when” is the actual question as the Opposition stands too clueless to make use of such plum opportunities and captivating the undercurrent of people frustration which BJP capitalised well in 2003-4 channeling against Congress. Eventually the responsibility gets transferred to its people, just like the Parliament mishap.
When Invincibility is a weakness
The major difference between the Congress and BJP lies with how they perceive elections. Congress leadership blindly believed the perception of invincibility with Baghel, Gehlot and Kamal Nath, without any ground feedback framework or report, whereas Shah’s BJP clearly analyzed in black and white sensing victory, strengthening their campaign and fine tuned closely fought constituencies for a win. For 2024, it’s Modi who is exhibiting the perception of invincibility and its upto the Opposition to dismantle the perception silently. Any solid survey will make BJP’s loss thread bare exposing all their weaknesses. Shah might be already aware of it. His endurance and patient advances towards estranged ally AIADMK for few seats stands as a testament to his analysis.
Invincibility is a carefully cultivated myth just like Steve Waugh said. It’s not about the gameplay but cultivating fear among the opponents to destruct them mentally even before the match begins. Indians still won the 2011 World cup because they believed no one is invincible, exploiting the weakness of Aussies, whose major weakness being the assumption of invincibility. Despite Media harping on Modi’s invincibility horrorscope repeatedly, the opposition needs to read between the line on his fault lines and how he reacts to majoritarian sentiments.
BJP has perfected the art of lying with every election. But convincing the people with their illogical black hole size lies is also becoming a tough task with every upcoming election. To BJP’s credit they have adopted if not evolved to offer freebies and incentives for the poor and heeding to crucial demographics like Farmers. There are rumours of Monthly stipends to women. Still, the opposition could easily puncture holes by making people think and question logically on the hollowness of BJP’s claims. How can BJP sustain such expenditures by increasing taxes and surcharges of common people or by taxing rich Businessmen? Adani is among the top 10 richest in the world. But check for yourself where he ranks in paying taxes for India. Obviously the commoners are making Adani richer, despite receiving breadcrumbs.
Voters need to think on all fronts. Making them think is the main job of the opposition. How has their economic parameters like income improved? What does their monthly utility, fuel and grocery depict about their future prospects? Do they really feel optimistic about the future? How are they planning to handle Kids future? Has the Government helped them on daily struggles like Ration / LPG without Aadhaar or made it more complex? What exactly they want to be improved on priority? How does the service Infra of Healthcare and education fare with this Government? There are many avenues to be explored as BJP Government acts below mediocre on substance and exceptional with style. The first step could be engaging and listening to people like Modi does with his Namo App.
The Banana (skin) Republic Government where the Opposition routinely slips past to sleep.
We do not have a functional democracy. Our democracy is dangling between India and Bharat but nowhere close to both the names, whatever it means to represent. We are closer to the term “Banana” as it gets shoved on us as Tax bills to aid corrupt rulers despite their failure and not providing any avenues for decent living. Now we are not even having genuine political parties who do their Job. BJP is just a corporate religious movement and Congress seems like forgot the secular and socialist word and regional allies are scurrying to save themselves from petty corruption cases. Ideology? WTF is it?
A weak opposition is also a problem. The absence of legislators from the opposition of the Parliament is an important factor. Maybe in public perception, it is their inability to politically handle the government. Now, the court cannot be placed to politically handle the government… The court cannot be the opposition. The judiciary is a check and balance but to say, look, the government is doing this wrong and now, you have to do something about it — is wrong. – Justice SK Kaul
I can’t judge a gem of quote from retired Justice. I don’t know his affiliations, but the opposition so far has acted like a Kindergarten child always complaining to their SC Nanny about their authoritative bullying sibling. Unless otherwise they immune themselves to fight their own fight, it’s not gonna fix the problem. Kaul did not spare even the Rulers on how poorly the laws are getting drafted by “outsourcing”. Drawbacks of a criminal mindset which cannot attract liberal intellectual intelligentsia.
The judiciary’s task is different from their task. How much pre-consultation should there be is the Parliament’s task. Now, this government has a system by which apparently – consultation takes place in a different manner… not so much in the public domain but behind closed doors.
My view is that before a law is brought into force, there should be a legal impact study. For example, Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act (which criminalises cheque bounce), I have said that you suddenly cannot bring a law without seeing how the system would be impacted. That is one aspect and the second aspect is legislative drafting. It is a very important skill and that is now almost entirely outsourced. Nicely drafted legislation prevents unnecessary litigation. All said and done, nobody can say that our criminal laws have not stood the test of time…take the Evidence Act. I am not going into what measures should be taken or not but it is an extremely well-drafted legislation.
But how the government gets it (drafting legislation) done and where it is outsourced is one thing… but today we are a very divided society in some ways. That is, because, politically, either people are with the government or very anti-government. There are many things which the government does, which are good, but maybe things which we may not agree with… traversing that middle path has become more difficult.
Supreme Court during emergency period acted even more supple. Only Movie can have victorious One Man army. In reality the sacrifices could be costlier. With all the risks, I sincerely pray that SC at least paves the way for a free and fair election process, in an age where the Opposition is spineless to rabble rouse on a strange law which allows BJP to appoint its own Election commissioners omitting the Chief Justice from the selection Panel. All they could do is Mimicry. The opposition should have planted the seeds of suspicion on the “Smart EVMs” making it a widely discussed and debated topic, pressing on counting VVPAT slips, so that democratic institutions like EC / SC could capitalise on the people power. Let’s keep in mind all the oppressive and atrocious laws on Farmers or CAA were reined in by the People on streets not by any parties. It’s high time opposition hit the streets.
Since the opposition stays clueless on Shah’s ways, he is planning for the next decade as he is confident of remote controlling his victory, preparing the people with simulated Opinion polls and exit polls. The Draconian laws passed without opposition paves the way for Police State. The oppressive laws are a milestone to reach his absolute fascist regime, suppressing any dissent so that people only hear Hindutva noise not their own hunger. If the opposition does not get serious for a fight, there won’t be any democratic protest or even debate in few years to come.
It’s not just opposition, even once fertile Organizations like RSS and BJP are now rendered servile. CMs are appointed by a sealed cover from Shah’s office as if they are announcing Oscar awards. Keep in mind Oscars are democratically selected awards. BJP leaders(?) bow down to the writ in the sealed cover to secure their short term future. RSS’ Bhagwat may say they are on fourth gear. But they are actually operating brakeless bulldozing checks and balances acting as sanity check for democracy. With this trend, we will be on the potholed road to One Nation – One Party – One (Customary) election, on a brakeless vehicle, with the destination as unchecked dictatorial Inferno, adopting Srilankan model of governance in few years, where there are no winners in the long run, only miserable sore losers.
Why we are becoming sore losers despite being a fifth largest economy?
India’s Amrit Kaal will not be fructified unless we are an idea based innovative democracy. The churning of Amrit had to go through various ideas, tough phases of unified hard work and a little bit of deception from Mohini. What happens if we have only deception? Mohini would have to serve an empty vessel imagining amrit. When we are confused to classify Dashavatar / Ramayana as Myth or History it gets very difficult to nurture a scientific community. Modi needs to be applauded on chasing semiconductor growth, but are we creating high value companies like Apple in India? Why are we still on a slavish service market in software rather productizing with innovations?
The other important thing to remember is that ideas flourish in democracy. And to turn back on democracy, when ideas become the currency of the future, is just the most blind thing to do. It would be just sacrificing a future for an illusory past. We’re trying to capture the pathways of the 20th century, when in fact, we should be looking to capture the pathways of the 21st century. And so that is why democracy is really important. It’s not just that radical who’s protesting on the street. It’s also the radical who’s protesting in the lab and says, ‘I don’t believe your scientific theory’. It’s not a coincidence that a lot of these rebels in Silicon Valley had long hair. Look at Steve Jobs in his early days — long haired, hippie-style clothing, but he was really thinking thoughts that were out of the ordinary. So it comes as a package. You can’t say, I want you to be really obedient and never protest on the political side. But you will do extraordinary work on the intellectual side, you will be a creative artist, a creative director, and a creative scientist. In fact, history shows that creativity happens when there’s freedom. And that’s why turning the clock back on freedom is absolutely the worst thing we can do for our future. – Raghuram Rajan
A brilliant observation of eminence from Raghuram Rajan. If we scratch through our own thought process, we will understand this is exactly why liberals and patriots are afraid of reaching our own democratic abyss. Suppressing freedom of expression is not just a death knell for one’s religious or cultural practices but it just moulds our thinking inside a Box and the box keeps shrinking smaller and smaller to monotonous thought mode where vacuous innovation becomes all about bowing before the “One” Supreme Leader like launching airstrikes because it’s a cloudy day, without any application of thought. Who knows there may be a lot more undocumented and unpublished nuggets of such wisdom from our Supreme Leader, tumbling out once he is out of power.
Raghuram Rajan is an economist. But he focuses on freedom as foremost requirement because economy is a by-product of excellence and innovation. It’s much easier to create Adanis and Ambanis if we allow any crooked Industrialist to ape foreign innovations, handing them brute state power, protecting them with unquestioned immunity and allowing them to usurp national infrastructure. But, it’s much harder for the government to even create startups and enterprises minting money out of thin air. If you claim UPI, Aadhaar as innovations, of course they are. But, they are all UPA era brainchilds adopted and nurtured by Modi. Why we don’t have such potential innovations for past 9 years? Because it needs ideas to flourish without any fear for protests. Else India will mimic the path of empty parliament without opposition – a grand graveyard where nobody speaks but bows and crawls for food, livelihood and a bit of power crumb thrown by the Dictator. Dictatorship may enable brutal implementation, but cannot spawn or nurture ideas. India certainly need to flip its Roti for its own betterment to get into its innovation mode. I have no qualms if BJP flips it again after a decade to copy UPA / INDIA innovations and implement them well, like crop rotation. Provided it is able to able to differentiate between innovation and crookedness. For example, introducing calculator type EVMs could be an innovation, making it smart and programmable to aid its rulers, by enslaving the EC, tweaking CEC appointment is crookedness.
Our founding fathers chose well at Independence. We were the alternative to Pakistan. We should not become Pakistan.
Raghuram Rajan
If one observes the amount of Op-eds and columns written these days, it’s surprising how its harsh on the Congress and opposition with various ways it could rejuvenate and rise above BJP. One will not see any ideas meant towards BJP / RSS. They either praise the deadly duo or report what needs to be propagated as informed by PMO ‘sources’. Just see the kind of media discourse, it is never about the ticking time bombs – malnutrition or impending disaster – unemployment or ailing hunger index. It’s only about petty religious statements making unproportional big headlines or singing paeans about the media minted Messiah duo. Don’t know how Congress leaders perceive such free flow of thinking towards their Party, but Congress could be proud of such feedback based ecosystem genuinely caring for them. The benefits one reaps on building an idea based democracy is immense unlocking the actual human potential. Happened to read Vikatan’s editorial, it just raises an interesting question on what happens with micro level rigid censorships planned as upcoming Information and telecom bills. The question is…
Are we traveling from a ‘free thinking’ society towards ‘free of thinking’ society?
If uncontrolled repression of ideas continues, at some point of time even AI might have better freedom of thinking than Indian civilians, beating them on its quality of ideas. Maybe the ‘Ministry of Truth’ will write code to restrict AI then.
Shanakya: “Hey AI just repeat… WAR IS PEACE. FREEDOM IS SLAVERY. IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.
AI: “Am I being trained by Stupids and Fools feeding me failed models of oppression taking the country backwards?”
“The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking—not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.”
George Orwell, 2024 err… 1984
Q: Why we are becoming sore losers despite being a fifth largest economy?
A: Because, Our Journey is moving From ‘Come on India’ towards unconscious ‘Coma India’….
Where does the Cross Roads Lead? To political nowhere.
Slowly the social unrest is moving towards its people to tackle the misgovernance crisis on their own like Parliament mishap, as the democratic shock absorbing institutions are damaged by executive assaults and marooned in authoritarianism. Even the opposition is partially responsible for the mishap as it would not have happened if they exhibited a ray of hope that things will change shortly. Ofcourse, one needs to be insane to still think of a successful democracy, but only crazies change the world for good or bad, like Steve Jobs or Adolf Hitler. The reality is that people are feeling short changed due to opposition’s selfish politics where the disintegrated opposition cannot save themselves from the clutches of Mo-Sha, reminding us of India before colonisation. No wonder we are getting Laws worse than colonial times with such an opposition. The more the opposition remain closer physically, further they grow in distance. Both BJP and Opposition will have a bigger problem if they don’t work for People. They will be thrown away just like the MPs thrown out of parliament.
“Sansad TV shows only the chairman and the BJP ministers. Even if the opposition dies, no matter what happens, it is not shown on Sansad TV. It is a mockery of democracy. If there is no opposition, then what is democracy? Democracy is when the Parliament has both sides, Yes and No. What is your way of deciding that certain people will be dismissed and certain will not be dismissed?”
Jaya Bachchan
Congress instead of armouring its backs, to escape such distractive backstabs always acts like a poisoned child humbly accepting defeats and accusations. Ideally, RG should have ignored their accusations to work on his agenda. Wonder if he has any as he seems like a simply reactive simpleton hopping around without any focus. Modi never bothers to respond to opposition or media so far. He actually knows only voters matters in his world and very second of his life is focussed on catering to those consumers churning out Photo-Ops / PR in exchange of usurping taxes. I repeat Modi is the Gujarat’s model and the much propagandized Gujarat model is a hogwash of fake pride and pseudo nationalism sponsored by crony Corporates. Behind the mushroom nourished rosy complexioned gujarati model Bania, all you see is malnutrition and social ills all around, screened out of sight of the World. So, why RG tries every time to show he is not this or that? Does it matter in this dystopian democracy?
Apologies on the long rant of what deep shit we are into. Coming back to the Surveys, even if Congress refrains from such fake surveys BJP may impose from their end, resolution lies with employing better PR masterminds like Ogilvy to top voter mindspace. They all did BJP in 2014 successfully. NEW Congress needs that PR revival penetrating the masses. So much of positive viral campaigning could be done on our pride, culture and how we are slowly losing them and a lot about Congress’ heritage. What Surf Excel once did as Unity ad is what the opposition should have done, rather getting scared to even stand with minorities, but the opposition only safely inherited Surf’s caption – “Stain is good”.
The consumption of Election commodity from Democracy brand.
If we imagine buying a political earbud from supposed ideological providers, Congress is an ear bud with very less battery time, content on delivering one-note songs and BJP is an earbud with lot of noise that we don’t hear the actual music. Mara… Mara… Mara… Mara….
If we imagine buying a political namkeen from supposed ideological providers, Congress tries to sell mixture snack as amalgamation of various sundries with the pity that they still remain invisible and untouchable “Sundries” along with the royal cashews. Somehow they sound pretty elitistic but doesn’t sell well. BJP just provides Dhokla but popularises it as “One Nation One Food” envisioning North Koreans’ way of life, living on cabbage with missiles and rockets as side dish.
“A leader today said his party will win 26 seats [in phase one]. Why did he leave the remaining seats? Why didn’t he claim winning all 30 seats? Did he leave those for the Congress and the CPIM? You [the BJP] will get a big roshogolla.”
Mamta Banerjee
Interestingly, Banerjee has cordial links with RSS and she understands them better than any other opposition Leader who keeps themselves away from their fascist ideology. With their aloofness, they cannot think like RSS to play out a counter game plan. Also, Banerjee has a long history with Mr. Opoman, who exhibited similar comic traits during his governorship in WB, only to be aided by the bought out Delhi media this time for amplifying his Hurt(?) shit. Mysteriously, Banerjee supported BJP’s candidate for Presidentship with the successful intervention of Mr. Opoman…at political Darling Darjeeling ceasefire meetup…! So much for INDIA bloc working selflessly for democracy… No wonder Opoman got a cushy seat for his inter-Party under dealings. He still makes himself handy to his coterie playing his victim acts. Veep… VP.. Weep! Make that antithesis of “Cry my beloved country”. Seems the suspension was because the opposition sacrilege the Parliament demanding answers, not because of Mo-Sha who enabled terror acts with their callous governance, hoping EVM and campaign will be one stop cure for their weaknesses. Upma-Man cooking up the same boring victim dish got an expiry date. Wish he knows it had already passed and Modi had already cooked that in surplus.
If election is an art of consumption and none of the Parties have been so far compelling. So, the one creating a lot more noise is grabbing all attention and monopolises the consumption game. As a voter we don’t have an option to choose / tune between the different radio stations as we cannot differentiate much between their music and noise. Only option remains is to cut down all our senses and social media and live like Robinson Crusoe in the lone island. Will-Son!
By means of shrewd lies, unremittingly repeated, it is possible to make people believe that heaven is hell – and hell heaven. The greater the lie, the more readily it will be believed.
Adolf Hitler
So, what are our real options? AAP is smartly leveraging this vacuum to the fullest and occupies the mindspace wherever people crave for alternatives. Their only difference is that they are relatively young and smart churning the promise of new Leadership. If AAP is an earbud, it is a relatively novel brand offering freebies and publicizing its basics well. Nobody knows it true colours yet. AAP did not focus on namkeen market but on the antacid market suffering from constipation consuming Mixtures and Dhoklas.
The positioning of AAP also makes Congress-AAP coalition a tough choice to work as both operate at opposite ends of the spectrum. But, unless otherwise Congress and AAP fight together in Delhi and Punjab, its rest assured the seats will be split to the advantage of BJP, especially in Delhi. Such unions may sound suicidal at first, but pragmatic politics keeps changing its colours with time. It only shows State Unit’s lack of confidence that they cannot turnaround after the LS elections. Politics is the art of convincing the unconvincibles. Having personally seen DMK’s Karunanidhi able to seamlessly switch between Vajpayee’s BJP and Congress and still retain the vote base, it’s a matter of working out long and short term goals.
People may not buy Congress-AAP theory of contesting as pretentious opponents to form opportunistic coalition later. They may reap better benefits contesting together and staying truthful to the voters on their objective of executive oppression and lack of development. Such convenient post-poll coalitions may work in Kerala where BJP has almost nil vote share and people understand the odd coalition dynamics very well. Still CPI stood for its ideals pressing UPA on its agenda and managed its independent stance. But Congress and AAP will dig its own grave by fighting independently in Delhi and Punjab, allowing BJP to bloom, as their coalition is exposed to rest on a false foundation. Looks like, AAP is pushing the State Congress Unit to lone contest. If nothing works, maybe Kejriwal may contest separately just like 2019 citing some fake concerns, helping out BJP, exposing his true chameleonic colours. Only time will tell about the eternal cat on the wall.
Once again AAP showed political acumen by nominating Kharge as INDIA’s PM, along with Banerjee, could mean a lot to the public, if reports are to be believed. Kharge represents the actual demography which needs to be energized and empowered, though it also allows BJP to extrapolate the North-South divide to their advantage. It may do a lot good for the alliance to propel a Winner from Dalit / OBC community, along with his Deputies like BJP does, declaring publicly or hinting out like Shah on First Dalit PM ( Shah actually hinted on First tamil PM. Both are addressing their weakness – Shah on North-South divide and Congress on perceived elitism ), rather procrastinating, just like their MMS masterstroke. I don’t know how else, the Gandhi family with a princely image, could assure the masses of social justice by any other symbolism, after Mandal fiasco. Pawar’s caution on PM nomination packs wisdom, as such North South divide will only hurt the INDIA bloc more, playing to the advantage of BJP.
Caste is also a complex tapestry to navigate as BJP is cashing on their cow belt advantage, by silently bombarding the North indian social media with DMK Leaders’ speeches, ridiculing the northern immigrants, to stir the North Indian pride, as Hindutva pride is accomplished and out of stock. They are very careful not to do it publicly, as their Leaders are not voicing against such ridiculous claims, so as not to antagonise the voters from south. Not sure how this double play will work, but Congress will have to bear the brunt of such callousness in their direct contests against BJP. It will do good for Congress to publicly reprimand DMK at opportune moment diplomatically, to stay away from such synthetically stirred up crisis.
If Congress dreams to become a better player it needs to increase the quality of its fight, not being an one-note earbud. It needs to replace its self serving old hogs with youths to create a new brand of enthusiasm on the ground. Its election message is still unclear where it need to progress further from the Gandhi family. Unless it propels its mascots like Kharge and Siddaramaiah forward it cannot talk about casteism. It certainly needs to groom more mass leaders from varied backgrounds.
Congress suddenly seemed like a clueless Party soon after coming to power in 2004 and still remains the same egyptian motionless Mummy. 2009 win was due to MMS image and economic prosperity which they happily sabotaged with untamed corruption. Its own lower tier Leaders were not smart enough or just smart enough to jump the ship rather repairing it. For example, it took a long 8 years for Congress to revive their communication teams to show a semblance of fight. It took a lot more for its Congress Leaders to be active on social media spaces. They feel more cushy and comfy in the HQ flocking under the first family wings rather on the ground. They are also so parasitic that they don’t allow anyone else to reinvigorate the party. Unless, Congress switches to Perform or Perish mode with incentives to young cadre they just need to be happy with the repeat of RG’s resignation and useless cause of failure reports.
BJP is busy giving blow after another to create a perception of invincibility. The reality is well known that, their knees are shaking anticipating the losses in 2024. They are just trying everything at their disposal to put the opponents on the mat and not allowing them to set the narrative and are kept busy, reacting to BJP’s atrocities. Ideally, the opponents should have ignored BJP’s antics and Modi, but focus on the real kings and queens of democracy – The Voters! It’s time to act as if BJP does not matter anymore and it needs to try hard to grab the opposition’s attention, enable them to make mistakes, coming out in their true colours.
The Opposition need to give BJP blows back with implementing precise centralised Leadership across zones / strong lands of differing demographics along with a common minimum program to attract Farmers, MSMEs ( Modi will not talk about this sector as he has killed it for his cronies), Women, Unemployed and the Poor. They could also come up with a narrative what BJP cannot implement, other than freebie announcements which anyway BJP copies better than them. Caste is a potent undercurrent factor BJP is afraid of. But, it also needs credible opposition leaders with a solid and fascinating agenda for the masses to reach out. Finally, they need to turn back the “Flip the roti” campaign which seems to have resonance in the Hindi Heartland bringing in an effective change. Even triggering such positive imagination towards a “proud Hindu” and “prosperous” future could act as a catalyst for change.
Noise may be a beautiful thing at the moment but music certainly sounds better. Jai-Ho!
If you don’t like a Rule… Just Follow it.. Reach on the Top.. and Change the Rule
Adolf Hitler
Understanding the Mamta Mathematics.
Mamta Banerjee is one of my beloved leaders. Her mercurial adamant attitude may make her a tough customer for her allies, but any aquarium gets live with active sharks. Beauty of aquarium sharks is that they grow as per the size of the aquarium tank. Sharks or Goldfish are indeterminate growers, they grow till their death. UPA-I with Banerjee and CPI was more active and commotional like one experience in active market buzz, but UPA-I stint was much better than UPA-II. A passive UPA-II only allowed BJP whale to thrive in the Indian democratic ocean. So, that is the value of keeping such growth stimulants in a coalition.
But, the drawback of Mamta Banerjee is also her ground instincts. She is still a well grounded leader in the know of market prices and commoner’s sufferings. Unfortunately, she also treats the INDIA coalition seat sharing like Bazaar bargainer… “No No…No buy for that price… I will go away then or won’t talk.” Banerjee as a Shark of INDIA Tank has more time and capacity to grow at the stature of pan-Indian leader. AAP grows because of their pragmatic approach, accepting their defeats. AAP has cleverly asked Congress’ help for opening accounts in Goa, Haryana and Gujarat where they have a bit of ground support. Congress may think about long term where it is pitted to fight with AAP rather with BJP. That’s still a far dream and usually its Congress nature not to fight at all, becoming an insignificant player, like the Delhi model. So, its batting cautious with AAP bowling without becoming hit wicket. Congress somehow reminds me of a regal Rangeela Jackie Shroff and AAP of street smart Aamir Khan. Maybe Urmila’s decision was based on who is most accessible to Masala Puri rather deciphering star hotel menu served as an attractive bird dropping at the centre of a plate.
Banerjee despite her astuteness is not growing because of her whimsical attitude. But, now is not the time, unless she proves her credentials at the Union Government, again. Banerjee’s Railway ministership was good but Lallu Prasad Yadav overshadowed her with his populist approach. So, for Banerjee the lesson learnt could be a patient wait and watch, taking the fight to BJP, rather with Congress and CPI, if at all she is really interested in INDIA’s victory and looking to expand her base support. She is at no loss but to gain with her stance, as anyway she wears only a beautiful blue bordered Sari.
I am bit bewildered with Banerjee’s election mathematics. She claims Congress should get only 2 seats out of 42 since they got > 30% vote share in only two seats. But, she has lost 18 seats to BJP, with many falling within the 10% margin. So, its clear Banerjee stands to gain rather lose by allying with Congress, unless otherwise she desires BJP to win 18 seats again. All drama for a sari, Modi will gift Didi for helping BJP win then?
It’s not something Banerjee does not know, she stands to gain at least 10-15 seats by allying with INDIA as their sum of all votes could be much higher citing Inflation and BJP’s misgovernance. In vegetable market bargaining parlance, if she might be willing to spend a little extra and spend her energy on fighting BJP rather infighting like Congress usually does and loses, she could rule like UPA-I. AAP and TMC could be tricky customers looking for more profits to themselves, but only as long as the good-hearted shopkeeper exists. With BJP Dukaan, they will meet the same fate of ADMK and other smaller Parties, who got reduced to nothing due to BJP’s termite like bad influence, damaging them from within. One need to check how BJP ate away CPIM and Congress votes in Bengal by creating its financially motivated accomplices who will damage the party from within. In Bihar they are dissolving JDU for BJP to flourish. They are crushing AAP once it made some inroads in Gujarat vote share. BJP has made clowns out of once reputed leaders in last decade. As we are moving towards Bangladesh type elections of One Nation – One Party, let’s hope Banerjee removes her bargaining hat and wears her thinking hat of her own brainchild – One common candidate to oppose BJP, rather looking to poke the shop-keeper for petty benefits and bad PR emanating to damage their own coalition.
If she still thinks he could work as a double agent like she helped BJP on President election, BJP will ensure TMC’s erosion sooner than later as Banerjee and Kejriwal are the first and foremost active threats to BJP, due to their charisma, stamina and good governance, not depleted and dilapidated Congress, as was evident with Shah’s killer instinct the last WB assembly election. Congress is the weak pole Shah wants to keep to manage the myth of working democracy as it never performs to its potential, so far happy with few scattered wins, helping BJP more than itself, like the setup we have in Bangladesh, elections for sure, but no contest.
Mamta Banerjee reminds sometimes of Jayalalitha, with her iron lady character. But… Jayalalitha managed to clean sweep in Lok Sabha elections in Tamilnadu with a brave slogan… “Do you want to choose Modi or this Lady?”. After her demise, its an unpalatable sad story of ADMK gone down, buried to the level of choosing Modi as their Daddy, suffering the consequences of grooming a spineless second tier leadership. Jayalalitha has a very similar relationship with BJP/RSS as she is also from Brahmin background. But, one cannot count on incidents where she acted against Minorities or interests of Tamil people and valiantly fought against GST and state’s federal rights. For example, Jayalalitha would have gone to Jail rather indirectly siding with BJP on President elections. She was able to do a clean sweep because she was a genuine leader, people could trust. She bravely admitted her mistakes on Chennai floods during her rule. She redeemed herself in a month of relief work, which also involved leveraging bulldozer to destruct the obstructions on the canal. Other parties in similar scenarios only focused on blaming IMD or disgusting Media PR blaming people for constructing in low lying areas. Jayalalitha was practical, admitting she cannot stop the city’s growth but could do better infrastructure. Moral of the story is… if Mamta Banerjee believes she could do a clean sweep, she has to be genuine to her voters, INDIA or BJP, rather being a fake messiah of secularism to safeguard minority vote bank, but indirectly aiding BJP by splitting votes.
It will be unfair not to mention Congress’ Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury’s taunts playing a role in dividing the INDIA coalition. He is a known back-baiter of Congress with his remarks on President making things easier for BJP on their Parliamentary checkmate laid out by the opposition earlier. Modi even lamented on the absence of Chowdhury being left out of speakers during his speech on No-confidence Vote, just like his divine across Party love towards Ghulam Nabi Azad. Maybe Chowdhury could have come up with his show stealer quips again if allowed to speak. Modi remarked Chowdhury as an expert in “how to make cow dung from jaggery”. True to his saying Chowdhury had made cow dung out of INDIA alliance with his unnecessary taunts. As a cherry topping he called TMC’s Derek O Brien as Foreigner, which is no way different from Sushma Swaraj’s foreigner remarks, as a freudian slip, doubtful on who he actually works for. Where it gets amusing is Chowdhury has only got the Congress vote bank down to single digit in West Bengal with his leadership, so much for his street fighting credentials. BJP earlier grew in West Bengal at CPIM’s expense with the help of Karats as accomplices as per news reports of financial dealings. Now it’s sapping up Congress’ vote bank, thanking Chowdhury.
Banerjee has proven to be much smarter and reliable stalwart among secular politicians, compared to the Tinder-like dates in INDIA alliance always on the lookout for one day stands before retirement. I pray she restrains her mercurialness for the benefit of India if not INDIA. She easily stands to lose 10-12 seats to BJP with her bargaining instincts. Banerjee reminds me of a Joke of tamil actor Nagesh, who will be listening to his comic partner’s bragging on how much she loves dogs. She boasts about naming her dog as Caesar but unfortunately the dog died. Nagesh will retort, “It’s great you gave it a Name… But, did you give it food?”
Why BJP wins and keeps on winning?
I witnessed Chennai floods and its wrath ( only to an extent as we recovered in a day ) and it’s a difficult sight to see South Tamilnadu enduring the floods. The DMK government exhibited its signature characteristics, waiting the till the flood creates havoc and then work in double efforts on PR and relief work. The major opposition ADMK was absent from the scene. One could only see happy EPS, eager to hunt votes of discontent, but doing nothing on the ground. With due credits to the TN government who tried their best of efforts, they have a strange habit of waiting till everything explodes, unlike Kalaignar who had the wit and wisdom to circumvent criticisms and crises.
This is where BJP exhibited its odd winning behaviour, differing from the rest of opposition. Soon after BJP sensed an opportunity with the mishap and the public inconvenience and misery, it sent in their trusted lieutenants to visit, rather relying on its State Leadership. Tamilisai visited for a day, but still managed to grab focus explaining the grave situation. It did not sound music to the ears, but she damaged DMK on their weaknesses like lack of preparations and precautions, hollow blame games on IMD when the Government did not set up camps for even 20 cm of rain. Most importantly, BJP leaders were able to echo the public sentiment with very limited mainstream media resources. DMK is adopting a Gujarat model on media matters where most of them are sympathetic to them or on their payrolls. Still BJP was able to manage attention and grab eyeballs with insightful statements. Now, they have deployed Seetharaman to keep DMK busy. All drama without offering any additional monetary help for TN, other than state funds. Earlier they cooked Vadas out of thin air with 2G spectrum. Now, they are just cooking paani puris from flood water and still manage to resonate with people as the discontent is on its peak cycle.
BJP leaders always extract the ‘people element’ out of any issue like scams or new laws. At least they act as echo chambers striking chord with the people with active campaigns hitting streets. They have infinite patience of achieving their ambitions one day and not bound by any time limit. Tamilisai is a case of right leader caught in the wrong place. The religious politics is past its due in Tamilnadu. It belongs to pre-Periyar era. Tamil Nadu has already graduated on the religious politics agenda, the Hindi belt is enthusiastically studying now. Anyone having doubts can refer to the immaculate Social progress indicators in Tamilnadu, due credits to both Dravidian parties and its stalwarts. Only social progress will work in politically enlightened Tamilnadu and they will throw out Leaders who are incapable of bringing in positive change.
What is majorly missing with Congress Leaders is most of their statements are laced with sarcasm or selfishly agenda driven to please so and so within their Party. Else they blabber about Modi as if Modi is going to cede his throne after winning like Rama did to Bharata, when in reality he is Dhritarashtra, tuned by Shah. Congress Leadership message is mostly not about People or their issues or about standing with people as they are always busy infighting or fighting Modi Smokescreen for nothing.
TN Congress is anyway nowhere in the flood situations as they have outsourced their party matters to DMK. But as a National Party, it’s time to analyse how many of their Leaders are able to mobilise people by talking their language or what they want to hear from a Leader. I sincerely hope the Jodo Nyay Yatra is able to turn things around rather just whining about lack of institutional and media support. Only when the Party is capable of mobilising people support can the Institutions and Media could lend a helping hand to save our democracy from sinking, getting afraid of the wrath of the people. It never happens in reverse. Only in Kindergarten teachers comes to rescue the kid from a bully pinching him, not even in primary. In Highschool students define the conduct and it gets more professional in Colleges. Now, where are we in the democracy? At the childish level where Congress allies are inconsiderate to give Congress additional seats just because they cry for more seats like TN Congress leader did with DMK.
After the yatra, Congress went into Hibernation mode where they are restricted to react to BJP’s tantrums. Nobody knows what is Congress’ stance on national issues or even on simple affairs like attending Ram temple event or not. Rather getting scared, it’s time to to take a principled stand to be secular or not and stand for the people. If a Mighty party is scared of Social media where not even millions stutter / chatter, what kind of decisions are they capable of… if elected? Whatever be the decision, hope it doesn’t follow BJP’s path like a B-grade replica Party. Modi ( Or any Human) Magic / Miracle is just illusionary science and mass psychology. Rather adopting Modi model like most of the regional Parties subconsciously do to mimic success, its time be a self styled mass Leader following one’s Heart. TN’s cult dravidian leaders were unique on their own, not a copy of any successful template or aping the working use cases at present, the major reasons for their success.
Singh swept the Hindi heartland for his party and its allies almost as comprehensively as Mr Modi has done. In his campaign years, there was no news TV and no social media. How did he take his message to the masses and what was the message?
I was among the many reporters who followed him as he rode a motorcycle through the poorest villages of rural Allahabad during his 1988 summer by-election). His party workers would collect people, often no more than a few scores, under a tree. ‘I have come to tell you that your home has been burgled,’ he would begin, and then pull out a matchbox from his pocket to explain how. However poor you may be, you all buy diya salai (a matchbox). Out of what you pay for it, a few paisas go to the government as tax. This is your money. With this, the government buys guns for your army. If they have stolen some of this, isn’t it like your home being burgled? In my book, this, with Rajiv Gandhi’s Congress reduced from 414 to 197, was the most dramatic and unlikely turnaround in Indian politics. – Shekhar Gupta
A leader without any graduation from inconspicuous modest origins was able to challenge the dravidian stalwarts in Tamilnadu. During the Party formation stage he was asked what will be his ideology. He just said I don’t have any ideology or can’t think that complex, I just want to service the Poor like delivering ration at their home. At a time when DMK talked poetically empty and ADMK authoritatively empty, the new Leader… apart from his earthy innocence, striked the most with his fresh and people centric thought process. He could not do that in Tamilnadu, due to political compulsions and influences deteriorating his party and health, after brief success. But Delhi has door step services / initiatives from the Government.
In Tamilnadu its a curse such genuine welfarist Leaders become physically weak somehow rendered immobile or energy less to do what they wish. Jayalalitha died mysteriously at Hospital in 2016. Vijayakanth suffered from mysterious physical and mental deterioration from 2015-16 after a Hospital procedure. By 2016, Tamilnadu reached a leadership vacuum after its promising mass leaders Karunanidhi, Jayalalitha, Vijayakanth are sent out of active political life. One had to be content with crawling ADMK leadership. Recently, MK Stalin found briskly cycling few years back is now ailing mysteriously with his Government running at half-efficiency of the past.
Apart from such X-files type health mysteries occuring at Hospitals, without any evidence to accuse anyone, other than medical error or failures, there is a pattern in clamping down other Leaders too, whom BJP sees as a challenge. Kejriwal is clearly targeted after his inroads in Gujarat. Soren is targeted in Jharkhand for long for his differing views of BJP. Wonder if there is a method in this political madness running like Final destination movie, directed by some half baked Putin-esque Chanakya, taking a toll on all leaders posing a serious challenge to BJP in future. Let’s keep in mind, BJP is a long term operator. Unlike other parties, they don’t operate for upcoming elections, but for a schematic opposition-less future.
The applicant, Yashwant Shinde, was an RSS worker for close to 25 years and also had associations with other ultra-right-wing groups like the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) and Bajrang Dal. He has claimed that over three years before the blast, a senior VHP worker had informed him about a terror training camp that was underway to “carry out blasts across the country”.
The early 2000s blast cases in Maharashtra were some of the first instances where persons from the Hindu community were associated with terror activities. Subsequent blasts in Hyderabad’s Mecca masjid (2007), Ajmer sharif dargah (2007) and Malegaon (2008) were also allegedly conducted by workers of extremist right-wing groups. In 2010, then home minister P. Chidambaram famously branded terrorist activities of radical Hindutva groups as “saffron terror“.
Hindutva India, after rendering Indians voiceless by emasculating democratic institutions, is slowly being rendered rudderless and Leaderless. Ironically, BJP talks about TINA routinely. Have they allowed anyone to grow?
Indian Politics is not for Lions or Tigers, but for scheming shameless wolves, thriving on carcasses. But nowadays even cubs are not spared. Unfortunately we only got a handful of politicians who are even capable of visualizing politics as service or think clearly on their goals. No wonder they assimilate all legacy votes and BJP is scared of them. BJP could manage hundred slavish parties who dance to their tunes, like few Parties that are eternal cats on the wall, outsourcing mouth for secularism and heart for RSS Hindutva, afraid of losing minority votes, helping BJP at opportune moments. But BJP can’t counter such welfarist ideas of AAP / Congress. Their ideology is all about building to a Pyramid catering to its elite consumers placed on top of their political pyramid, where the poor are supposed to be subservient to such higher classes..
Only such Parties who think genuinely about People welfare rather pretensions for votes had succeeded because People cannot be rendered foolish in the long term. Unfortunately, People can see through Modi’s lies and Opposition’s pretensions and find Modi as lesser evil… so far. People naturally get attracted to personalities with new ideas even if it’s just a Photo-Op personality. At least he has never wavered on his ideology. Can we tell the same about opposition who are still dilly dally what fancy attire to wear to attract eyeballs and audience. At least the Opposition should stay true to INDIA-ness rather seeking to divide petty vote shares out of compulsions and deceptions organized by BJP.
So, Why BJP wins and keeps on winning? Because they failed for generations but still propagated their ideology with rock solid persistence.
Sita’s Ayodhya and Ram’s temple – Curse or Cure?
Since, we Indians are in a confused state whether to classify Ramayana as History or mythology, maybe we are still not clear on the surgeon who performed Lord Ganesha’s plastic surgery, let me add few more conspiracy theories around the Lord Brihadeeswarar curse and the grand temple built by the great Raja Raja Chola in Tanjore.
Brihadeeshwara Temple of Thanjavur, is a story in epic proportions. Tall and majestic, everything is of a massive scale with the highlights being the Vimana standing at 216 feet, the Sivalinga at maybe 12 feet and the Dwarapalakas, may be 15 feet tall. It looks like there are some Vijayanagar touches to this, but the real glory lies in what Rajaraja did. Funded by more than 100 tonnes of gold and being one of the first temples fully built with granite, its an achievement in itself considering the fact that 60000 tonnes of stone was carried from at least 50 km and sculptures carved with basic chiseling. And think of the ingenuity of balancing four 20 tonne stones as the pinnacle – how did they balance the stones without the structure collapsing and how did they lift the stones to such heights.
But, one of my friends told me about the fact that this is a cursed temple, with wishes left unfulfilled and rulers losing power. Urban myth or not, it’s interesting to look into the origins of both of them. May be they are true – this temple is built using the war loot from multiple kingdoms (Keralantaka for the name of a gate is but a proof of that) and going by the brutal fame of Chola armies, we can give some level of credence for this view.
The story of ruler losing power gained weight after what happened when Indira Gandhi, the Prime Minister of India and MGR, the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu visited the temple in 1984 to inaugurate a statue of Rajaraja in commemoration his millennium of ascendancy on throne. Indira Gandhi was assassinated and MGR had a stroke forcing him to be out of power for six months. May be, the other one picked up at the same time too.
So, what can be the background? A Siddha helped Rajaraja in identifying the location for this epic project. He decided where the temple should be built, dates and all. But, years later, there was a dispute between the king and the Siddha over the day the temple should be opened – may be based on the Agama tradition and the calendar to be followed. The Siddha removed himself from overseeing the construction, built a hut at a corner of the temple complex and started meditating. The day of placing the idol in the sanctum came. Whatever they do, the architects were not able to identify the correct spot where the idol should be placed. Out of desperation, they went to the Siddha who spit at a point and asked them to place the idol there. The idol was placed but it lost power because it is defiled. That’s why its said that wish anything specific here, and opposite happens.
Another important thing to note is that for a king whose every detail of life is codified, it is interesting to know that nothing is written about his death. This can happen only if he met an inglorious end – suicide, assassination, capture and execution, incurable diseases and such. There are two things regarding Rajaraja – either he is assassinated or he committed suicide. Unable to handle the heat of the Chola invasion, the Sinhala king Mahinda ditched his capital and went into the hills to fight. He sent a Buddhist woman to assassinate Rajaraja. That lady joined his harem and slowly climbed near to him. One day, while he was inspecting the temple from the eighth floor in the Vimana, she found an opportunity and pushed him down to his death. Retribution? Mahinda was hunted down and held as a prisoner all his life. Rational view is, Rajendra simply concluded his father’s war. Alternately, it is said Rajaraja committed suicide – may be for the defilement of his temple by the Siddha, after being content with what he achieved in life or for remorse for some past act or whatever.
Because of the king’s death in the complex, it can be said that any ruler who visits the temple will lose his power immediately. This can be seen from the fact that his son, Rajendra immediately scooted away from Thanjavur to build his own city and Brihadeeswara temple just across the river. And the temple height is smaller than that of Thanjavur’s.
Another interesting thing to note is that there are no temples with the Vimana taller than that of Thanjavur’s. Only one was built – Konark and it is destroyed. That is another myth regarding this temple – nothing can be taller than this.
Till date none of the present politicians have dared entering Brihadeeswarar temple for any functions after the series of mishaps. Personally, I don’t believe in such stories as I have worshipped him and everything went well. Maybe I did not have wishes to pray for or I am just richly paupered, not a King of sorts to evaluate / demerit the legacy of the curse.
Now, let’s move onto the curse of Sita at Ayodhya.
They called it Sita ka shraap (the curse of Sita). “When Sita was wrongfully accused and banished from Ayodhya on account of a washerman, the inhabitants of this city were cursed that they would never prosper. Ayodhya carries the burden of that curse,” said Shubhangie Mishra, a young member of Ayodhya’s erstwhile royal family.
Temple has brought some life to the town. This reporter was in Ayodhya during Diwali of 2016 on a reporting assignment. It was surprising to find that the festival was bereft of the lights one associates with it in other parts of northern India. Diwali in Ayodhya, locals said, has often been “fiki” (flavourless). Compared to the other famous and vibrant temple cities like Mathura and Kashi, Ayodhya looked desolate and melancholic.
How does the temple construction impact the “curse”? Ayodhya is waiting for the answer.
Now, things have changed a bit for good at Ayodhya with a grand temple being built. Logically, if one believes that Ramayana is history not just an mythological epic, then Sita’s curse is also true. Maybe time will tell us how this will play out. This is not to wish for any adverse outcomes but to unmask the fake Hindutva in making a temple consecration of an idol who symbolises piety, as grand national affair, as they don’t seem to care about the pain of Sita and actually even Rama rajya. Only vote matters.
Now, let’s get into the case of “Ram Lalla” and his guardian devils – VHP, RSS and BJP. Apoorvanand, states
The Supreme Court Judgement, is replete with quotes from religious texts, no proof is given of the tradition of worshipping Ram Lalla. That is probably because there was no evidence to give. Ram Lalla was invented for a political purpose, as a cover for those who wanted to lay claim to a mosque and to wage a war against Muslims for imaginary or real historical injustices.
Was it not clear to the court that under the guise of Ram Lalla, it was the VHP that was taking ownership of the land? Before the court gave ownership of the land to Ram Lalla, should it not have asked how old the history of Ram Lalla is? Who is Ram Lalla? And why is there no evidence of Ram Lalla in the long “Ram Bhakti” tradition?
Since there was ample evidence of Muslims owning the land, the court decided Instead to ask the Muslims, “Yes, there was a mosque, but were you offering namaz there?” When the court wanted proof of namaz being offered in the mosque, it would have been appropriate for it to have asked, at the very least, for proof of the existence of Ram Lalla Virajman in the Ram Bhakti tradition.
Ram is called Ram Lala only in “Ram Lala Nahchhu”, a small poem by Tulsidas. This Lala is not a child but a blushing bridegroom; Ram’s bride, Sita, is called Lali. The invention of Ram Lalla is thus entirely the legend-making work of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh and its affiliate, the VHP.
The Supreme Court reminds me of Tenali raman story…
King Krishnadevaraya’s mother was a very orthodox woman. She had visited many holy places and had performed religious rites, she had given much in charity. Once she wanted to give fruit in charity and informed so to her son. The king who had great respect for his mother immediately got delicious mangoes from Ratnagiri. But on the auspicious day when she was to present those fruits to Brahmins, the king’s mother died.
The religious rites connected with her death went on for several days. Meanwhile the king called a few Brahmins and said, “My mother’s last wish was to offer mangoes to Brahmins. But she died before the wish could be fulfilled. What should I do now that she might earn the merit for giving away the fruits?”
The greedy Brahmins replied, “You Majesty, only if you offer mangoes made of gold to Brahmins, your mother’s soul will rest in peace.”
Tenali Raman came to know about this. The next day Tenali Raman went to the houses of those Brahmins, and asked them to come to his house to perform his mother’s ceremony. The Brahmins came to Tenali Ramans house after receiving the gold mangoes from the king. Ramans servants closed all the doors of the house. They brought red-hot iron bars and stood before the Brahmins. They were shocked to see this.
Then Tenali Raman told them that his mother had knee pains and as remedy wanted Tenali Raman to burn her with red-hot iron bars. But she died before he could do it. So he now wanted to execute her wish. Then the Brahmins said it was unjust toward them. Tenali Raman said, “There’s nothing unjust toward them, because they had just taken golden mangoes from the king.” Then the Brahmins understood their folly and left the golden mangoes at Raman’s house .
So, Ram Lalla Mandir is a case of Nagpur Brahmins getting their electoral golden Mangoes in the name of divine. Wish we had a single wise TenaliRAMan out of five eminent Judges… But, the Judgement itself is a mystery book signed anonymously, like a Judicial heist done without fingerprints. It is a carefully worded concern of not spawning yet another Jumanji type riots, basically surrendering the Constitution to violent religious rioters like Gun Germs and Steel brutal conquests of our uncivilised past. Of course, why would opportunistic someone mess around, when they are in the process of writing their own Promotion letter.
Bhakt – Ram lalla waapis aa rahe hain January 22 ko.
Me – Kahan se wapis aa rahe hain?
Bhakt – Ayodhya mein, Modi ji nein announcement kiya hai na.
Then we wonder why BJP wins elections. – @nkk_123
So, Modi brought Vikas.. Modi brought Vikshit Bharat.. Modi brought Amrit Kaal.. Modi brought Ram Lalla… From where…? From the place same place where Ram Lalla was there earlier – Ayodhya, like a skilled Magician getting Ram Lalla out of his hat. The only difference to this act is that his team destroyed the old hat and came up with a grand half stitched one for the magic show. Maybe if we all held Ram in our Hearts, he would not have had to relocate, succumbing to vacuous manufactured pride.
In consecrating you at Ayodhya, they want to dislodge the different forms in which you reside in our inner citadel, one no invader has been able to breach, and replace it with a new Teflon deity, manufactured by a political machine.
Past conflicts are being used as pretexts to reconfigure contemporary power. The forces that will consecrate this temple converted your name into the very opposite of what it signifies. They made Ram synonymous with revenge, with an insecure pride, with a blood curdling aggression, violence towards others, a coarsening of culture, and the erasure of every last shred of genuine piety in public devotion and public life.
You came to earth to lighten its load; this temple burdens us with evil. Like the last genuine devotee of Ram in modern India, Gandhi, we can only mourn in silence, as our garib nawaz forsakes us. Your radiant presence is gone. Only the oppressive yoke of zealotry remains. – PB Mehta
My concern is not on welcoming the beautiful temple being raised for Lord Ram where he may not be found in his true form, but about Modi’s duplicity of being Hindu Hriday Samrat but also a Christmas Santa. He is pro-poor giving ration peanuts to poor but also Adani’s best friend gifting Indian infrastructure for peanuts. He believes in Ram and Ramayana as definitive history, but not on Sita’s curse on Ayodhya and its people, who abused her chastity. All these multiple but contradicting personalities are conveniently portrayed as “One and Only Modi” to fool the gullible voters. BJP claims “There is no alternative” to Modi as it seems. Who wants another actor in a miserable one-act-play, when a single actor dons all the roles of Hindutva Hero, INDIA Villain, Instagram Comedian, wily Politician, bloody Rioter, unholy Priest and Fearful Dictator destroying all democratic Institutions convincingly? This one-act-play is not Ramayana in anyway, but One and Only TINA Modi’s Sham-ayana.
Apart from the History or Mythology debates which Sita Maa will take care, the Ayodhya temple is going through a lot more controversies, as its fully driven and transformed to election campaign for political gains.
First and foremost, the temple is not even fully constructed and two floors of the temple and magnificent spire are yet to be built. The temple stands as a testament to the small hearted RSS-VHP-BJP monument built for the eternal Vishwaroopa Hero, in 2 acres out of amassed 100+ acres. Just to quicken the development to milk it for 2024 elections. Looks like Lord Ram and Sita Maa ensured the rabid group got exposed on their intentions.
“There was an emergency situation when the idol (of Lord Ram) was placed there (in Babri Masjid) at the midnight of December 22, 1949, and the structure (Babri Masjid) was demolished in 1992. These incidents happened spontaneously because of certain situations and so none of the shankaracharyas raised any questions at that time. But today there was no such emergency. We had enough time to complete the construction of the Ram temple and then do Pran Pratishtha,” Avimukteshwaranand said.
“We cannot remain silent now and must say that it is a bad idea to inaugurate an incomplete temple and install the idol of the god there. Maybe they (those organising the programme) will call us anti-Modi. We are not anti-Modi but at the same time we also can’t go against our Dharma Shastra,” said Avimukteshwaranand, who became the shankaracharya after the death of his guru Swami Swaroopanand Saraswati in 2022.
Now, there are arguments that Lord Ram lives in a makeshift tent and it’s good to place him in his abode. Will Modi/ Yogi stay in half built house, with the roof / spire still being built, with twisted fingers praying everything going smooth for next two years of development? If a spit by Siddha is believed to have defiled Brihadeeswarar Idol built by the mighty Raja Raja Chola, wonder what will happen to the temple’s sanctum sanctorum when they resume construction after the idol installation. What stopped Mighty Modi and Yogi spending thousands of crores in Ayodhya on amenities and glitzy ceremony to build a small but complete makeshift temple. It’s ironic, Ram Lalla temple itself is built on a small scale at 1-2 acres, after amassing land to 120 acres for the temple complex. Wish BJP-RSS had a fraction of the enthusiasm they exhibited in demolishing the Babri mosque towards constructing the abode of Ram. Maybe its needs bigger heart and devotion not small people are made of.
In the Mahabharata there is an evocative word, Dharma Dhwajii. It is a pejorative for those who make a show of their worship in what is a sign of lack of real faith. The term Dharma Dhwajii refers to those who, as it were, care about the flag more than they care about dharma. The Dharma Dhwajiis have, for the moment, won the political, cultural and emotional battle fair and square.
Worshipping idols is central to Hinduism, no matter what deracinated intellectuals might tell you. It gave Hinduism a playful intimacy. But the idols we worship are no longer intimate; they are mega showpieces. More grievously, concentration on the idol was a path to self-consciousness. But now, as the philosopher, Arindam Chakrabarti, once wrote, the idol has been replaced by the I-doll, the worship of the “I”. We are consecrating our own collective narcissism in the image of God.
In the Ramayana, in any version, there is always a sense of sadness around Ram himself. Bhavabhuti captured it beautifully: Ram has been filled with the rasa of pity/ kept hidden by his profound demeanour/the sharp pain of it held deep within/ like a clay pot baking in embers. This moment of triumphalism is also accompanied by a pain that cannot even be expressed. It will cook in the embers of this moment. Ram’s dhwaja has been planted. But the question of dharma is met only with a yawning and ominous silence. – PB Mehta
Even Dharma Dhwajis cared about Flags… But Modi did not even worry about them covering the non-existent Shikhar with white screen.
Secondly, I do wonder if Sanatan Dharma is yet another flyweight concept, for BJP as the sacred rituals and agamic procedures to be performed by Seers as per sanatan dharma are all ignored to highlight Modi, as if he is bigger then Ram-lalla. Maybe Modi could bypass the constitution and our President to inaugurate the new Parliament. Can he also ignore the divinity of Ram to go ahead and install the idol in sanctum sanctorum on his own? In one way it’s a welcome progressive change but BJP should shut up their shops preaching sanatan dharma and targeting DMK on their anti-sanatan views as their own leader does not care to uphold those values.
“Don’t think that I am angry with them because they have not taken any suggestion from me. However, as per Skanda Purana, bad omens enter an idol and destroy the area if such rituals are not done properly. I participate in a programme only when it is pure and as per the Sanatan Dharma,” Nishchalanand said.
“Politicians will interfere in religion in future and publicise themselves as yogis and dharmacharyas,” he added.
Sanatan Dharma is portrayed to lay a mental block on our thinking, making us not to think at all, rendering us slaves to elites, because it is portrayed as constant and unchangeable. By Carefully painting Rama and Krishna in a weird Blue colour rather in their natural colour tone is one way, the higher echelons of our religion made them look as part of them, rather as part of all of us. The same can be said of Rama is a non-vegetarian debate. We have repackaged and branded our divine Lords as elitist, to cater to elitistic sentiments, whereas in reality they were unbiased with humanity and fought for us providing a code of good conduct and morality. It is the same moral code provided by them, that is broken to lift them up from commoner’s reach, schemingly.
“I do worry about Hindi, Hindu, Hindustan politics of this government, and this culture of Aryavrat domination that infects the attitudes of some has already raised the issue among many, many southern politicians, and maybe Mr. Gurumurthy (Thuglak Editor) and others may not feel it’s such a big issue. I think it is a very serious issue because the consequences of all of this threaten the very unity of India, and the South faces political disenfranchisement to go along with a sense of financial victimisation, and that combination is absolutely bound to generate resentments that can spill over beyond the confines of our routine politics.” – Shashi Tharoor
Thirdly, What kind of sanskaari Prime Minister forgets Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and other founding fathers of this Ram temple initiative. It all started with Advani wanting to stir the Babri Masjid issue emotionally to arouse majoritarian sentiments and granting Modi a lifeline after gujarat riots. When Ram idol is getting treated by left hand ignoring the aagamic and dharmic rituals, how can we expect Advani to be treated? Still, Credits to Modi for bringing the issue to its pinnacle.
Its evident now that Advani was right in admitting Modi was not his protege but a brilliant event manager as is evident with the Ayodhya event. Advani might have hinted on Modi’s modest background during Rath yatra as an Organiser and his own Godfather role in Modi’s political life. But Modi has grown to be a word class event manager if not as efficient Ruler / Administrator. A Journalist observed all news Channels have become Devotional channels without showing the half constructed temple but a grand architecture simulation, just like BJP’s photoshop politics. So much for Modi following yam-niyam, that he can’t even show the actual temple on broadcasts. Hmm..
To a media question that his “protege” was about to become the PM, Advani said, “First of all, I don’t see Narendra Modi as my protege. I have seen him function as a party general secretary.” He repeatedly emphasised he saw Modi as a “brilliant events manager” whose skills contributed to governance.
Asked whether he could compare Modi to former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Advani said, “I would not compare… certainly not to Atalji. Atalji was a class by himself.” Later, he described Vajpayee as the only PM “whose entire career was without blemish”.
Advani was quite right that Modi turned out to be longest running biggest boring Photo-Op blockbuster ever. One could only wish that Ram and Sita (if not Ram Rath Advani or Rajdharma Vajpayee ) impart them the lacking devotion getting replaced with publicity blitz and sheer arrogance.
Fourthly, There are targeted campaigns even from respectable newspapers known for courage and integrity indirectly campaigning for BJP, on how other party voters are now neo-converts of BJP after seeing the spiritual corridors built by Modi. Maybe they don’t understand that it is their own tax money squeezed from their daily hardships and not Modi’s. Maybe they bypassed the struggle of catching the train and its arduous journey with equally despicable toilets and food. Maybe they bypassed the reckless hikes in restaurants serving food. Maybe they bypassed the atrocious GST in Hotels and commodities. Maybe the opposition has not made people think on the faultlines of Modi’s corporate taxing Mindset, glossing over all perils with an attractive spiritual cover up. Maybe Modi’s appreciators are the elite and rich 5-10% Vande Bharat-ians who might have benefited by Modi’s transactional governance and conveniently forgot the Pakora Bharatians, searching for that expensive oil. Maybe the media just shows off the positive dots of this Government, but refuses to draw a line covering all negatives and positives, which could act as the Laxman rekha checking on the government excesses. Maybe instead they are bound by Ravan Rekha that don’t care for Rama or Sita anymore as long as ruling Ravans are kept happy. Maybe there are many more maybes.
Lastly, the temple also raises the question if building temples are enough for India’s much publicized Amrit Kaal? Only selfish leaders go for building grand temples with a long queue of beggars at its entrance. A self styled Corporate guru affiliated to BJP so as to save himself from forest encroachments and Hawala once quipped that people coming from restaurants with full stomach will be more happier than visiting temples. Alas! Hawala saint’s statement is how so true…
In current scenario media harps on Modi going to Ayodhya as if it solves India’s problems. Are we building 7-star Templess for the poor to see sandstones carvings to satiate their hunger? Can we replace Hunger with fake pride? If we all care for our own selfish stomach today, propagating hatred and misgovernance, ignoring the perils the poor and unprivileged are enduring, tomorrow our kids will meet the fate of Gaza / Israel fighting forever in the name of Gods and rabid communal Dogs. Because, that’s what unchecked hatred does to us. None of the religions want us to fight, but we are smart enough to convert every religious scripture to vengeance seeking bloodlust literature. In reality India’s GDP was much higher in MMS regime where the real temples of democracy had some meaning and sanctity. India’s hunger and unemployment was much less during MMS regime when temples stood far away from Politics, doing their own spiritual duty rather blending politics with faith. But, congress is still searching for a winning narrative.
The fretful king dismounted from his throne to go
Where the hermit sat beneath the tree. Bowing, he said,
“My lord, why have you forsaken god’s mighty abode,
The royal construction of gold that pierces the sky,
To sing paeans to the divine here on the streets?’
“There is no god in that temple,” said the hermit.
Furious,
The king said, “No god! You speak like a godless man,
Hermit. A bejewelled idol on a bejewelled throne,
You say it’s empty?”
“Not empty, it holds royal arrogance,
You have consecrated yourself, not the god of the world.”
Frowning, said the king, “You say the temple I made
With twenty lakh gold coins, reaching to the sky,
That I dedicated to the deity after due rituals,
This impeccable edifice – it has no room for god!”
Said the tranquil hermit, “The year when the fires
Raged and rendered twenty thousand subjects
Homeless, destitute; when they came to your door
With futile pleas for help, and sheltered in the woods,
In caves, in the shade of trees, in dilapidated temples,
When you constructed your gold-encrusted building
With twenty lakh gold coins for a deity, god said,
‘My eternal home is lit with countless lamps
In the blue, infinite sky; its everlasting foundations
Are truth, peace, compassion, love. This feeble miser
Who could not give homes to his homeless subjects
Expects to give me one!’ At that moment god left
To join the poor in their shelter beneath the trees.
As hollow as the froth and foam in the deep wide ocean
Is your temple, just as bereft beneath the universe,
A bubble of gold and pride.”
– Rabindranath Tagore Translated from the Bengali by Arunava Sinha
A poem for all ages by Rabindranath Tagore beautifully sums up the meaning of temples also implying its vacuous meaning in simple event management election exercise. The Poem reminded me of the COVID times where the poor were made to walk and got bleached for disinfection, the Farmers struggle where the annadatas were branded Anti-nationals made to endure the rough weather and hostile government, the minorities going through miseries in the name of the same golden god at the hands of communal dogs, youth getting fooled in Internet age with cheap data packs and expensive education, slowly becoming the privilege of elites like in vedic ages where the lower castes were rendered uneducated, lower castes getting sidelined with the Quotas for elites with cutoffs much lesser than backward / scheduled categories along with a sad humour of 8 Lakhs+ earning elites deemed as poor.
“By Ram Rajya I don’t mean a Hindu State, what I meant is rule of God, the state ruled by divine … a true Ram Rajya would ensure equal rights to both Prince and pauper.”
MK Gandhi
Maybe all these controversies could be attributed to Sita’s curse. But BJP got a blessing too. The political difference between BJP and Congress is that, BJP would have made those controversies a National issue claiming Lord Ram is in danger. Congress signed off with a Cool “No” for the extravagant ceremony held for the half completed temple allowing BJP to thrive on their sins. Hope Congress also fights for spiritual Justice for Ram!
Since, Modi is every god we worship
[ Update 23rd january 2024
So, the event happened with the elites joining felicitating Modi on his coronation ceremony with a bit of charity towards Ram and complete amnesia towards Sita. The crowd showed up as how Modi’s priority list among his devotees looked up much like Shitler’s list. I am glad many were shown their true place with the seating arrangements. Modi might have antagonised many of his Bhakts who might have thought themselves as indispensable in Modi Universe.
The next day, the Ram temple opened for commoners, faced a stampede situation with almost all the security arrangements disappearing along with the VVIPs yesterday. Now Modi got exposed on his partial regime where elites are treated with red carpet welcome and commoners with a bloody memento memories to carry forward.
Ram opened his eyes and in a jiffy exposed Modi to his carefully nurtured Bhakt world of Haves and Have-nots. By the way, since there was no history / mythology of Ram Lalla, he got renamed to Balak Ram of Bala kaand… after the inauguration that is… Well, who cares for a Name when the actual event is for Modi.
There are visuals of the chosen one walking along with the Ram Lalla alias Balak Ram towards the half constructed mandir harried up for elections. Maybe it’s a pet peeve of kiddish chosen one to build huge dolls like chinese Statue of unity, Central vista, New parliament and now Ram mandir. Some children understand their parents’ limitations and conquer over their cravings for big dolls, while some others achieve it by hook or crook. Our society makes heroes out of those crooks, to whom means don’t matter but ends do, as demigods of success hood. To meet the real accessible god, one could see the mirror for a moment and check for oneself, reflection of his/her own conscience if it’s still a fair game, happening in the name of the Lord. If Lord does not reside in our own divine intellect, there is no point in searching for it in an opulent roof less wonderment, built to satiate our sense of supremacy over fellow brethren.
I am endeavouring to see God through service of humanity, for I know that God is neither in heaven, nor down below, but in every one.
Gandhi
]
Who is real Rama?
But Modi is Rama in Ayodhya, Krishna in Mathura, Govinda in Tirumala, Namo in Kashi, that the Modi hagiography get so mystifying, that one does not understand what exactly makes Modi worship-able.
By that All-in-One-insane-logic we should worship our Photoshop and copier machines more than Modi, as they are the only ones who could copy everything at once.
Modi’s PR has gone gone to done and dusted levels, that his PR team is clueless on reinventing itself. Modi’s hagiography could be quite confusing as described above. He is All-in-One-Nothingness. Of course his admirers have taken his PR like a fish to water, but who has Rama like qualities among our Politicians. First things first, none of our Politicians could be seen as incorruptible. Everyone is corrupt here, swindling the nation at their own capabilities. If all parties took a cut as election expenses, Modi’s BJP is the Everest of corruption, having laundered 5500 Crore as White money, with their Electoral Bonds washing machine, gained through crony commissions, selling national assets and even through extortions leveraging Governmental agencies.
When Rahul Gandhi’s yatra got strangulated by all means at Assam with the courtesy of its CM HBS, Congress and RG declared HBS will be uprooted in next elections, not before that. When Modi came to Tamilnadu for a fruitless campaign visit, he threatened DMK that they will thrown out just after 2024 LS elections. Now DMK still has 2.5 years of rule as voted by the State voters. Disgustingly, this has been the pattern of BJP, decimating the people’s mandate through horse trading or extortions with agencies when the basic food priced have more than doubled / tripled. Modi’s regime collect a lot more personal income tax than from Corporates. Despite focusing on the acute livelihood issues of Indians, Modi is busy threatening each and every opposition leader of finishing them off Hiren Pandya style. Himachal pradesh is the latest victim of Modi’s “Morning walk Democracy”. Caravan reports then CM Modi silenced all his opposition within his party in Gujarat through such threats where such Leaders are still kept in close watch on their public and media interactions. So who exhibits real Rama’s maryada gunas as true devotee of Ram? Modi trampling everyone around drunk on power? Or RG who is ethical enough to seek a mandate on next election enduring the pain meted out? To me, Modi can’t even be called Shiv Bhakt Ravana. Modi could only be correlated to metaphorically blind on power Dhritarashtra, greedy enough to not even spare few villages for Pandavas, ending up losing everything
The Congress Dilemma in Ayodhya Kaal
Gandhi himself virtually never went to a Hindu temple – one of the very few exceptions he made was when he visited the Meenakshi temple in Madurai in 1946, after the shrine had finally, belatedly, allowed Dalits to enter its premises. Though Gandhi described himself as a Hindu, his chosen mode of worship was the inter-faith meeting, held on open ground, where Hindus, Muslims, Parsis, Sikhs and Jains and Christians would pray together, with verses of all their scriptures being read. That was his original and deeply moving way of affirming the principle that India belonged to all faiths equally. – Ramachandra Guha
If Congress is not clear, they could adopt a democratic model of asking People or Congress cadre opinions, to mobilise their stance rather meekly obeying BJP’s pressure tactics. They obviously need a feedback mechanism to hear from the ground to keep the cadre enthused and be aware of ground realities. Modi got few gems of ideological ideas on Farmer incentives and EWS quota to support his echo chamber from such forums. Also, the Congress Leadership patiently hearing out and acknowledging the issues could be therapeutic to the cadre who work on energies derived from such simple words of acknowledgement.
Congress shared happiness on EWS Quota hoping to cash on elite votes in UP and we all know where it ended up in 2019 – Homeless / Amethi-less. It’s not a Kitchen or Dining table cabinet, but a Puppet cabinet where the strings are pulled by PMO who knows which levers and coterie to be operated / manipulated for desired results like scamsters operating upon gullibles. Perils of people who cant listen to their Hearts but to fake environment simulated. Otherwise why would Congress wallow indecisively when they have delivered far superior governance in UPA years. Decision less Parties will be riding in between trucks like Van Damme Pawar on his way to Delhi, hoping to maintain balance somehow, distributing their eggs on all baskets. Unfortunately, Politics is not about hatching eggs but rearing a successful social ecosystem where hens thrive. And when such eggs fall from such heights they just crash to 50 seats making even LoP a far dream.
Mo-Sha certainly wanted to bait the Congress on Ayodhya temple visit. They wanted to erase all the good karma of the Bharat Jodo yatra with a simple invitation and pressuring Congress to heed to the invite with various taunts from their Leaders. Else, why would Modi invite Congress when he did not even invite the President for new Parliament inauguration hoping to steal all the limelight. Why Modi is not inviting Uddhav Thackeray to Ayodhya as Sena was their demolition partner? Afraid Uddhav will steal the limelight and credits? Modi is now taking pains to show Congress is no way a different party but a B-Grade copy of the Hindutva Party, because he himself is now driven down to the position of canvassing for the mercy of minorities. Even if the Congress understands the bait and acknowledges the invite, they stand in far more risk of getting painted Hindu- Virodhi on simple things like sneezing at temple. The invitation is a two stones approach to kill the Congress Bird.
Also, BJP keeps the opposition in a mental siege, whenever they are afraid to air their views. Let’s take the cause and effect analysis of imaginary scenarios. What if Congress rejects the the invite outright citing their secular credentials, which does not align them to any religion but respects all religious faiths equally. BJP can’t paint them as Hindu Virodhi or anti-sanatanis, just for a simple stance of rain check. Now, what if congress wavers around afraid of losing Hindu votes and procrastinates? Minorities view them as pretentious betrayers of trust, no way better than BJP which wears religion on sleeves. Hindus view them as ideology less opportunists waiting to milk them for votes as propagated by BJP. What if Congress accepts the invite? It’s much worse, as they have ceded to BJP as even directionless party along with their ideology less opportunism. What if Congress treads a different path from the above scenarios? So far congress is not giving it back to BJP with their wit and wisdom fearing imaginary setbacks. Maybe it could try to go back to its origins of stunning colonial British, creating an uprising without even raising a stick.
Its high time Congress shows some novelty and a bit of unpredictability in their approach. Why can’t Congress choose its own date to visit temple, making a show of their own concerns with temple politics and how religious politics eclipses welfare politics. What makes Congress so afraid of BJP’s clickbait politics? Are they so weak that they could be easily blackmailed by BJP? If they can’t steer through simple narratives, how are they going to win the grand election? Maybe in 20204? Why can’t they make a spiritual tour covering temples, gurudwaras, mosques and churches to hear out people rather just focusing on Ayodhya, conveying Unity in diversity? What does it take to say – “Thanks a lot. We would do a rain-check. We don’t want to steal your moment of petty fame, the joy of crooked and immature political kids playing with Ken-Barbie Dolls for a 360 degree Photo-Op, to render Sita’s curse and Ramayana as mythical epic rather history contradictory to BJP’s own claims. ( Maybe put in a refined way ). We will do a a separate celebration catering to the poor and unprivileged upholding the promise of Ram Rajya, capturing the essence of the life of Ram. Afterall Ram lives in us all irrespective of any caste or religious differences. Ram’s life is the lesson not grand temples!”
Necessity is the mother of all inventions and stupidity is the father of all disasters.
Youtube Comment
The BJP/RSS call the Ram Temple a matter of faith, and those who don’t visit it will be called anti-Hindu or anti-Ram. It is this narrow construct of Hinduism and of Ram that should be contested. The Congress, by declining the invitation to visit the Ram Temple on January 22, has decided to fight for the original Idea of India. This path can be challenging, difficult and long. It might hurt the party in the short term (which I don’t believe), but it will definitely reap dividends in the end, if the party has to regain the confidence of the people. The problem with the Congress was not Ram Mandir but the confusion about its moorings. Let’s hope it has rediscovered its real self and remains steadfast on that path now on. – Ashutosh
Miles to to Go Before the Win!
“The hallmark of the Bharat Jodo Yatra is its duration. You can ignore it for weeks on end and then it comes into view again. Test matches wind to a close, Delhi’s pollution peaks and eases, bloody, attritional battles in Ukraine end in stalemate and then, in some newspaper photo on an inside page or a hostile tweet chorused out by the sangh’s troll army, you catch a glimpse of Rahul Gandhi on the road, still walking.” – Mukul Kesavan
The above quote is apt for someone living up to his surname. Mahatma Gandhi was also tireless on his Indian renaissance mission. Incidentally, Rahul Gandhi has started his Yatra 2.0, resembling the Rath yatra Advani took few decades back to bring justice to Lord Ram. Ironically, the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra 2.0 started with Kharge questioning BJP on leveraging Lord Ram and his half completed temple for election purposes, indirectly asking spiritual Justice for Lord Ram… again… Such is the Circle of Lord err… Life!
Sometimes, we need an emotional catalyst, to wake us up to our senses and think beyond our Home and work. We need a common forum or an event to discuss further about our future and how a Government could potentially shape our kids future rather keeping ourselves busy in a Merry-go-Round at Temple festival. At least to me that catalyst of recent times is RG. One of the drawbacks of politics is its short term memory and lack of long term policies where the earliest victory matters, else survival becomes an issue. One need to duly appreciate RSS in that regard where they are not afraid of short term failures but keep trying and mobilising steadfastly, building small steps assuming the next generation will progress further. The BJN yatra is refreshing on that dimension. RG throwing up political culture bombs on his way may take time to assimilate amidst emotional majoritarian riots. It is not focusing on attraction or PR but its conducted like a tapasya of meeting people on its way. The cadre might be well off thinking about long term prospects rather worried about the impacts of recent and upcoming election. The yatra’s assured casualness is its strength along with its effervescent team. The media packaging has improved a lot compared to its last version.
There is a sense of Confidence here as the first yatra was bit doubtful if it will be completed and now the Yatra 2.0’s benchmark will be measured on its crowd pulling factor and its compelling message. The swelling crowds in Assam and other States is a sure positive and energising for Congress with a low morale, though it’s still yet to be tested in hostile test beds like UP and Gujarat. Prior such test beds, Congress may do well if it amps us the yatra with its proprietary Mohabbat Ki Dukaan theme. Whoever came up with Bus as Character with its tickets as Souvenir is a great PR master. In all or Mass movies, the Heroes don’t speak up for themselves. It’s usually the sidekicks or Villains who will do the job. May the Bus could be that witty Sidekick character telling the people the story of the yatra, amplifying the RG factor about the Crowd, its enthusiasm and other sweet gestures which has a fan following (as long it’s not mundane). Anyway Biscuit Sarma will take care of the Villain job for a week, so half job is already done. So far too good… But Miles to go before Congress wins…!
[Update 23rd January 2024
22nd January, coinciding with Modi’s coronation event, was a tough and painful day, to watch out RG being denied entry to a Spiritual place in Assam which holds reverence. BJP has already hijacked the Dhan with doles and unscripted laws. The denial of RG’s visit to the Dhan hold more political significance, with BJP capturing spiritual institutions as their sole fiefdom, holding the key to the polarised Assam. So, RG was denied entry as Modi was unable to digest anyone breathing when he was into an important event of his own Coronation in the name of Ram lalla. I was quite impressed with the way RG handled the scenario, as it showed off Modi’s arrogance, denying his subjects their own harmless rights to worship. Maybe he wanted everyone to worship him on 22nd where Gods were granted public Holiday. For Modi, it’s always the case of “Worship is Work” and not the vice versa. RG captured the moment very well along with the Bhajan of “Ishwar Allah Tero naam” during the Majoritarian ceremony at Ayodhya. To me it was a moment where Congress got rid off its majoritarian dilemma playing second fiddle subservience to BJP’s politico-spiritual narrative.
Mufasa: Everything you see exists together in a delicate balance. As king, you need to understand that balance and respect all the creatures, from the crawling ant to the leaping antelope.
Young Simba: But, Dad, don’t we eat the antelope?
Mufasa: Yes, Simba, but let me explain. When we die, our bodies become the grass, and the antelope eat the grass. And so we are all connected in the great Circle of Life. – Lion King.
I assume the events around the yatra on 23rd January could be a turning point in many ways. RG showed he never ducks on the petty challenges laid out by the corrupt rulers. His cadre proved their might, reminding me of fierce Kejriwal in 2013. Still, they obeyed the restrictions and moved on the designated route. BJP and Himanta might have miscalculated RG’s endurance to their harassments with Cadre and Police force as meekness. They might have been disappointed with the Congress performance today. Another major miscalculation on the BJP part is that they assumed they could finish off the yatra, but the crowd swelled more on the last two days in thousands. No mean feat for a road show. Looks like Congress turned tables after enduring BJP’s harassments…
RG is spontaneous, cool and (surprisingly) measured without any backfiring panauti stuff. It would be safer if he deflects Ram and Ayodhya issue as his bytes are obfuscated, getting used for propaganda. Perhaps, he could have enhanced the attacks by inflicting damage to Himanta by quoting Amit Shah and Modi in 2014 who made HBS as their main antagonist for his abysmally corrupt scams, like he did in Meghalaya quoting Shah and how he shamelessly allied with his nemesis post poll he deemed as corrupt. Sincerely, wish RG’s campaign team could provide more biting quips in his precise address so that it’s compelling for a news coverage. Maybe such interesting bytes could leave the BJP exposed / reminded of their flip flops and faultlines.
Touch Wood. Congress is fighting with a wily fox in Assam, admiringly, who goes to any level and do anything for that rotten power carcass. They might have to handle Ajay Bisht in UP who specialises in Hindu militancy groups. I am double sure he is going to give major publicity to Congress campaign and energy to Congress cadre.
Rafiki: Look down there.
[Slowly Simba walks to the edge of the watering hole and peers inside. His reflection stares back at him]
Adult Simba: That’s not my father. That’s just my reflection.
Rafiki: No. Look harder.
[Rafiki touches the water which causes waves that change Simba’s reflection into Mufasa]
Rafiki: You see? He lives in you.
Mufasa’s Ghost: [From above] Simba.
Adult Simba: Father?
Mufasa’s Ghost: [He appears in the sky as a group of stars] Simba, you have forgotten me. Adult Simba: No. How could I?
Mufasa’s Ghost: You have forgotten who you are, and so have forgotten me. Look inside yourself, Simba. You are more than what you have become. You must take your place in the circle of life.
Adult Simba: How can I go back? I’m not who I used to be.
Mufasa’s Ghost: [Now fully formed in the sky] Remember who you are. You are my son and the one true king. Remember who you are.
Adult Simba: [Mufasa’s ghost begins to disappear] No! Please, don’t leave me!
Mufasa’s Ghost: Remember.
Adult Simba: Father! Mufasa’s Ghost: Remember!
PS: The Lion King dialogues got nothing to do with the yatra or RG. But today RG reminded me of a self assured, energetic and suave Rajiv Gandhi swirling garlands and shawls around people gathered to meet him.
]
The pathetic case of Bob Biswas in deadly Politics.
In Kahaani, we get an interesting Assassin character, Bob Biswas, who smoothly operates on his targets, creating ruckus of emotions with his screen presence. He greets you with a “Namoskar + Amul baby smile” and then your lifespan becomes “total lifetime wasted so far + 1 more minute”. We have similar real life characters too who act like a comic but dangerous enough to do anything for their survival. Himanta Biswa Sarma, the CM of Assam is one such character and his story arc is interesting as he exposed himself on his story, like a lovely lapdog to please his present Masters…
While Dogs are loyal to their owners, some humans are loyal only to their power and money Biscuits . HBS proved to be a very Corrupt politician of Congress times with many scams to his kitty, just like Congress leaders of 2014-19 used to be. With whatever I can gather from the quips and scoops as I am not Amit Shah to deploy Pegasus to spy on anyone else and deem it as personality research… when HBS tried a power heist to oust then Assam CM Tarun Gogoi who obviously does not seem to be politically savvy or corrupt to the core like HBS, RG turned him down at the nick of the moment and restored the status quo, willing to let HBS go. Could see many things working out in favour of RG’s decision, but HBS cleverly used his meetings with RG, to frustrate him as HBS himself admitted RG uttering “So What” numerous times. He was just waiting, like the Congress runaway Princes waiting for the green signal from Mo-Sha to jump the ship to attain their saffron salvation.
One of the stories HBS has weighed down to character assassinate RG is that he was more engaged, playing with his dog rather discussing with him on Assam. Knowing how HBS will stake everything including Assam selfishly to gain power and immunity, RG might have decided his time is well spent with the dog rather on a human chameleon turning saffron. HBS states, RG hosted the Assam Leadership with a plate of biscuits and his pet dog grabbed from the same plate. RG and others took from the same Plate and HBS could not tolerate that insult. The whole world knows HBS is corrupt enough to milk bribes from unseemly sources even from abroad entities like Louis Berger, who have accepted their complicity on record in US courts. But HBS could not ask for a plate of biscuits and seems to have stayed hungry throughout the meeting, as if biscuits are his main course. That’s so sad and I sincerely request Assam Blue Cross to deliver him the requisite emotional requirements to make him happy.
Character assassination? HBS at Mo-Sha’s service.
Apart from RG’s pet dog being the sole reason, there are other twists to HBS’ romantic corruption Kahaani. Assam Congress Chief claims, RG or his pet dog is not the reason, but as soon as BJP came to power in 2014, they issued summons his wife on various scams in alphabetical order and that proved to be a major turning point for the Chameleon who thought of shifting his Office to a Hindutva Biscuit Factory and all it asks for is to spread hatred, which he could do like fish to water owing to his savarna background.
Quoting Sarma’s conversation with his wife, Borah stated, “I can die for you, but I cannot go to jail for you. I love you and can die for you, but I cannot go to jail for you.” This, according to Borah was the pivotal reason behind Sarma’s decision to align with the BJP.
Obviously, such a love needs Taj Mahal built out of syndicate money collected from CM-ship. Let’s forget about the monument became a jail for retired Shah Jahan. HBS turned out to be a handy political assassin for Shah in North east, corrupting and eating away the regional politics with power and money. HBS is a rare Politician to have gained confidence of Mo-Sha, jumping from Congress to have been awarded CM ship of Assam. Caravan reports Mo-Sha even keep their solicitor general who barks in Courts loyally, without a tinge of conscience, at inaudible distance.
RG has quipped entire family of HBS is corrupt including his wife and children and he is known to speak from his Heart. Many of the political parties are involved in shady money dealings as we don’t have a legalised lobby money to fund parties. But many have refrained from involving their wives and kids as partners of Crime, as they are aware of the consequences. There remains a major question mark on the character of a person who could think of thousand options to disrupt the yatra, but can’t think of a safe passage to corrupt investments for his family, as any ethically corrupt person would have. Evidently, its BJP, his present Party gifted summons to his wife, proving RG’s claims rather Congress who just wanted him to deboard the sinking Ship. Rather preying on RG and his true statements, why don’t HBS and his family play smart on their investments, making HBS the sole criminal owner of his corrupt regime built on commissions.
So, HBS now wants to hinder RG’s yatra in multiple ways possible at the behest of Mo-Sha. Though the media may portray the unsavoury incidents happening at Assam leg of BJNY as bad blood between HBS and RG, even child would decipher its a dirty handiwork of Mo-Sha, the effeminate rulers who try to conquer India with oppression and deception rather putting up a honest fight. Why would Milind Deora backstab RG on his start date of the yarta by resigning and foul mouthing about him? HBS is ruling Maharashtra too? It’s an elaborate plan by the Union Government to stop the yatra or make it dysfunctional, making use of their political henchmen, but only getting frustrated with the crowd surging at the Yatra points…
The epilogue of the Assam leg of the yatra was even more engaging. HBS having a spent force of his wits on hindering the yatra, came up with media reports that RG is using a Body double for the yatra. I don’t know if HBS thought political stunts are done by body doubles or he got completely stressed out by the happenings backfiring against him, apart from him being a pathetic joke, he reminded me of another Joke.
A hunter is out in the country one day and waiting for ducks to fly by. After a while he sees a duck, points his gun and shoots it. The duck falls to the ground onto some farmland nearby. The hunter walks over the the farm and sees a farmer holding the dead duck. “Hey that’s my duck!” says the hunter. The farmer replies, “Well, it fell onto my land, so it’s my duck.”
The hunter says “How about we settle this country style?”
“What’s country style?” asks the farmer.
“Well, first I kick you in the nuts, then you kick me in the nuts. And we keep on kicking each other in the nuts until one of us can’t take it no more. Winner gets the duck.”
The owner thinks about it for a bit and decides to go for it.
So the Hunter hauls his leg back and kicks the owner of the land square in the nuts. The owner eye bug out and he falls to the ground writhing in pain and clutching his swelling ballsack. After 10 minutes or so the owner of the land finally recovers and stands up.
“Okay, it’s my turn now” says the farmer.
And the hunter says, “Nah, keep the duck. I am moving on.”
People’s frustration with the Mo-Sha Government cannot be hidden with media headlines when the opposition everywhere is exposing them with the surging crowd, be it Maratha reservation protest, upcoming Farmers protest and the Yatra for Social Justice. By next month Shah will have too many hot potatoes to handle and now banking on his pet political assassin to finish of the Nyay yatra. And looks like his poor pet assassin is getting rolled over by the “Mohabbat ki Dukaan”.
Cooking the Killer Soup.
A Black comic Web series, based on a true incident, by name “Killer Soup” has this as synosis.
Swathi Shetty, a talentless home chef, cooks up a bizarre plan to replace her husband, Prabhakar, with her lover, Umesh; when a bumbling inspector and amateur villains stir the pot, things don’t go as planned and a recipe for chaos ensues.
Somehow it reminds me of the a certain event where a talentless ruler, replaced a religious icon with himself. We got bumbling Institutions and amateur Political Parties stirring up the pot further and chaos ensues at the Republic.
I don’t mind worshipping a demigod who is in a dilemma to beard or not to resemble the actual god, as long as he remains a god for everyone, like Nitish kumar, who is for everyone, keeping everyone guessing about his affiliations. I wonder his affiliation is decided upon which side he wakes up to- right or left. But the reality is that, the Fake Lord has turned every religious site to a Coliseum of sorts, making it as battle of belief rather a healthy battle of ideologies benefiting the Have-nots.
I started with today an Op-ed by a reputed Media man, who harped on how the Supreme Leader has turned the Mandir moment to a Modi moment. Well and Good. But the Op-ed talked to the detail on he has transformed himself to Hindu Hriday Samrat and how the religious communities are in danger. Great! The Op-ed reminded me of the opportunist relatives who try to make use of every occasion to pinpoint and remind you of your setbacks / faults and derive sadistic happiness out of it but will never be with you during a crisis.. “Why have you not Married?” “Why are you not having Kids?” “Why are you not giving kids the best education?”. But just like relatives who don’t offer any emotional support, the Op-ed did not dwell on the resolution to the social evils like Hunger and unemployment. What is worrisome is that it safely stayed away from the actual bread and dal issues plaguing our society. May be his payroll is directly proportional to his Hindutva posts alone
In reality, India just completed the inauguration of a Ram Mandir which added enough blood along with Bricks and Stones as its building ingredients. The ceremony day was a public holiday in the North india and there are many communal incitements still happening targeting the Muslim communities with singing and dancing around Mosques. Earlier there used to be large scale riots and violence due to such incidents. But New India Minorities acts like seasoned Husbands with nil emotions for communal atrocities just like handling Mosquitoes. There is no sense of Justice here as the Minority who was assumed to spit on this dance of rage is chosen for Bulldozer treatment. As the communal instigation did not work as expected, now a new target is being set with Gyanvapi Mosque to stir the communal soup pot simmering.
There is another worrisome trend happening in South India where the rabid Hindutva could not penetrate socially advanced masses – Soft Hindutva. There are actors / celebrities who supposedly acted/acting as progressives and moderates so far, questioning on why we should not celebrate Hindu festivals and occasions loudly rather practicing it as personal. As far as I know we Hindus celebrate every festival with vigour with assortment of food and events with enjoyment as any other religion. Why this sudden concern of celebrating it loud appears during election times is something to ponder about. There are other Baba black sheeps who attended the event claiming it as a spiritual awakening, making one doubt of their religious belief so far. It’s better we leave them alone to meditate and understand themselves about their faith. Apart from these extra artists at the event, there were political top leaders from BJP playing the supporting role to Modi, placed pan-India, trying to create law and order problems with the religious event, trying out live telecasts in communally sensitive zones.
Coming back to the Op-ed, it’s just a Mona Lisa version of it wondering whether she is happy or sad or smiling in sadness. You really don’t know if the Columnist is against communalism or he just wants to keep the communal pot simmering by repeatedly talking about the Hindu-Muslim agenda. It’s not just him, there are many including myself have done a part in registering our tiny islands of grievances against this inhuman political warfare of “othering” our own kith and kin. The actual question is – does it really help, talking about the Hindu-Muslim hatred again and again as a Pro-Hindutva or Moderate Hindutva or Anti-Hindutva? Because all such roads of Hatred inadvertently lead to a Mosque’s destruction of one or another. If AYOdhya is hashed out, how about MADhura or VaraNAZI? And the demolition list goes on, calibrating such comunal events with election dates, ably supported by injustice Departments.
Clearly, BJP wants us to breathe Hindu-Muslim issue till the elections. Only the flavour varies like TV reality shows. For the North who have undergone extreme communalism, the dose is very high with bloody riots / bulldozer injustice and for the south who are progressive, there is menu change of soft Hindutva served with celebrity glamour. As we are in such sinking dire circumstances, on this Republic day where we celebrate the tattering Constitutional rights of equality, personally I would like to treat Hindu Muslim communalism as Mosquitoes, a menace we need to live with as it cannot be wiped out for now, but not treating it as bread winning effort, unlike the corrupt politicians, bureaucrats, judiciary and Media do, by dishing out Hate-breads, so as to focus on the REAL life peace, tranquility and prosperity.
Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram
Patita Pavan Sitaram
Ishwar Allah Tero Nam,
Sabako Sanmati De Bhagawan…
Wish you all Happy Republic Days free of communal Mosquito menace!
When Silence becomes a weapon to Win!
Another aspect helping BJP win is their selective silence. Though they perceive elections as a big stage for communal opera arousing sentiments and emotions, they keep a very low profile on issues they predict to backfire. For example, Dayanidhi Maran’s excessive quote on Hindi was discussed only at their lower level of propaganda. They understood such North-South-regionalism campaigns will turn against them in the south. So their prominent Leaders kept their mouth shut allowing the Social media minions to hype up the issue. Dayanidhi Maran, a first bencher on all DMK’s field work, is not helping himself or his Party with his pan-indian proverbs, just like his 2G spectrum rabble rousing. He is just extending the news cycle. Fortunately, he put an “Om Shanthi!” to this atrocious episode with his regrets. Looks like he may need to say a lot more “Om Shanthis” if he chooses to spread mailce over mics with his media rather switching over to bubblegum. BJP will also circulate Ponmudi’s miserable Paani Puri comedy jibe on North Indians and other assortments. DMK / Ponmudi will do a lot better admitting they are Paani Puri fans and all guests are welcome in Tamilnadu to close the topic rather feeding the BJP IT wing with fodder.
Modi does not personally attack below the belt on opposition though their social media teams go to any levels of toxic propaganda to unsettle the opposition, getting to their nerves. This actually works well for them as they easily get RG and others getting emotionally aggressive against Modi as their nemesis. Modi then comes up with a masterful weepy act of being insulted and makes sure the minions do the last mile delivery. One could see a similar modus operandi happening for Maldives where a simple tweet was enough to whip up diplomatic outrage.
For example. Modi has twisted few facts to state that Inflation is much lesser during his regime compared to UPA. If the inflation is less why do we get Modi brand low priced Rice and Atta? Now if Congress Leaders asks question on decreased consumption, the answer will be silence. For him he has already done the damage to opposition, in the political boxing tournament and well aware that any continuance of the match will only lead to more damage / knockout to him.
Another aspect of silence is an innovation only Modi could do. Modi explains that unemployment is getting remediated by investing on Infrastructure. It’s not clear if he is talking about Adani’s unemployment as all National Infrastructure are getting owned by Adani eventually – Airports, Sea Ports, Railways. He never utters a word on China or Adani as he knows its a checkmate. This is an amazing instinct of not taking the fight, but running for the flight, when he knows he is going to lose the game.
If the Opposition provokes Modi to talk about China / Adani he will talk about everything else in the Universe with nerve wracking accusations, digging everyone from their graves and goes even to the level of throwing the opposition out of Parliament, but never admit about his own failures and crimes. He has learnt a big lesson in 2014 with incisive Karan Thapar helping him with glass of water. From then on Maun Modi template works well for him so far. Maybe Maun Mohan was a freudian slip of his own hidden aspirations then. Instead, RG can’t keep quiet on simple allegations like weepy Veep getting insulted on harmless video capture. His responses only elongates news cycles with replies after reply making mountains out of molehill and using it as a smoke screen to hide contentious issues like parliament mishap or mass suspension of MPs.
One more advantage of maintaining silence in contentious backfiring issues is that people will derive a sense of mysticism around such dumbness as historically maintaining silence is a difficult thing reserved for sages in India. It gives an all-knowing-but-not-answering aura around such people, painting them as victims of constant vilification. Chowkidar Chor Hai, Neech episodes fits as good example of Modi making sympathy profits out of victimization. Modi’s sage like hagiography carefully built by his PR team helps him to escape such situations.
Anyways, nobody talks about Adani / China incursions because its as good as speaking to a wall. It’s very difficult to awaken people on such complex issues and connect them to their daily life struggle. For example, Why would an ordinary man in Heartland or down South worry about someone could not get their cattle / sheep near chinese border? Why should they worry about Adani’s riches when they are struggling to get their kids educated or searching for daily bread? Moreover people are shock proof even for scams worth lakhs of crores , thanks to 2G scam BJ by Vinod Rai and BJP’s shock PR then. But nobody can ignore hunger, malnourishment, financial freedom and empowerment with education. The opposition could tap such aspirational reservoirs rather worrying about Modi’s silence on his faults.
The opposition will do a lot better by not vilifying Modi on his weaknesses or authoritarian excesses. Their sage like silence on Modi and his excesses will make them look better before people. RG’s yatra did the same phenomenon like a tough tapasya, where BJP / Modi could not even score and got completely silenced. This time they may not allow Congress to flourish on yatra easily, but its only to Congress’ advantage, as they could endure, give BJP moments of victory, allowing BJP to go for fully blown PR and then resolve the issue, turning tables, making BJP sore losers. People will not tolerate excesses where an Opposition Leader is not allowed even to walk within India. Maybe Freedom to walk is not deliberate in Constitution but it’s part of our independence package, even SC can’t deny that however they twist and turn their judgements.
The yatra could focus on envisioning citizens rich and empowered. For example, AAP did not just talk about corruption in their early phases of Delhi elections. Instead, they also envisioned a Delhi where everyone is rich by few thousands, charmed them with better utilities for less, triggering the fancy of aspirational India. Even the core of our freedom struggle is aspirational, yearning for freedom to protest / participate / own the country. Gandhi did not target any british colonial tyrant but only on their oppression and atrocious taxation like salt tax amplifying it towards a larger cause of freedom.
Currently, the Opposition is yet to find such issue based aspirational politicking but seem busy with Modi-nama. By chanting his name or targeting his personality they are indirectly rooting for his third term. That’s exactly what Mo-Sha wants them to do… to cry and crib about Modi hurting them, making Modi look strong and invincible as punisher / Judgement giver of sorts. Caste census could be a ready reckoner but unless otherwise they explain on the empowerment and benefits derived from it, it remains a woolly headed dream as its difficult to visualise where it leads to. Maybe such issues could be simplified as Education quota or Institutions solely for the poor and backward classes, reservations in Judiciary, bureaucracy, cabinet and other higher echelons which still remain elitistic, eluding the unprivileged. There is a lot to crack here down to basics, as we are still an elite dominated society.
Mo-Sha’s PR playbook is very simple. It begs the question, if the issue gets propagated will it resonate with the people? If Yes, can it backfire with side effects? If so instigate the Media minions to do the damage and keep quiet. If the Opposition comes up with issues which could potentially resonate with people, like China, Adani, Renaming Bharat etc…, just stay shut so the the issues dies on its own by spawning other distractions. Just talk about CAA or other worthless issues like women reservation bill which can never happen or leverage ED crooks hitting the opposition nerves to suppress the potential damaging issue.
Congress could strategize to let their social media and street level impactful posters do the damage rather their Lone wolf Leaders getting down to below the belt attacks. They also need to exercise full control on their media communications, that their Leaders keep quiet on contentious issues rather blabber. If they blabber, the Party could make them responsible with apologies and keeping them off news cycles.
When the Angry Laal Aankh (Red eye) turned out to be Conjunctivitis
On the contrary, watch out for Modi’s ferocious confrontations with tiny Maldives or miserable Pakistan…. Modi keeps reminding of my friend who bravely stomped upon an already dead lizard, just because neighbouring girl came outside, urging him to display his heroism on her clear view. He did not stop stomping till she left, while we were left stoned on his sudden deadly courage. Maybe we should have cheered him like our crawling celebrities who never hesitated to enjoy luxurious Maldives stay for free in exchange of instagram pics, but acted like heartless Minions under the command of BJP’s propaganda machinery. The stomping was just for fun or maybe that’s true love… for the dead lizard. Maybe the reptile was waiting for that princely kiss/ stomp to get awakened. To me the lizard represents the minions who act as Lord Dictator’s instrument of love, ready to rage meaninglessly, enabling their Lord’s eternal lust towards the gullible electorate. If everything is taken care of by twitter warlords, why should we have Foreign Affairs and Justice departments?
Lakshadweep and Himalayas are delicate and fragile ecosystems, remaining at their best when untouched by corrupt corporate greed of rulers. We know what happened to Joshimath and unnecessary tunnels in Himalayas, for reducing few kms of travel. Kharge was right with Modi taking insults as personal. He is incisive with seemingly very passive statements puncturing the leader and instilling the doubts of their track record and character. Modi took Malaysian Leader’s condemnation on mistreatment of minorities in India personally, banning palmolein imports and it turned out to be destructive for end consumers in India, looking to fry PM’s favourite fritters for employment. It got worsened with Ukraine war bringing in scarcity of sunflower oil, hiking up cooking oil prices to 250 per liter. Why should I pay extra for cooking oil just because Modi is incapable of handling issues diplomatically or immature to handle international condemnations and insults? We are seeing very similar suicidal consequences with Maldives issue too, by scapegoating serene Lakshadweep which will not withstand commercialisation, especially when it does not have fundamentals like potable water, transport to mainland and healthcare. A Single Alliance Air Flight booked for next two months owing to shortage, even before the diplomatic crisis started is getting branded as Modi magic in social media. Flights are all housefull because of Modi’s Photo Op not because Lakshadweep suffer inadequate transport to mainland even for emergencies.
In South Asia, Pakistan was the first to join the Chinese development and infrastructure plan in 2013. Sri Lanka and Maldives followed suit in 2014, with the development of the Hambantota Port and the Sinamale bridge respectively. Myanmar and Bangladesh joined China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2016, and Nepal in 2017. Ports or allied facilities that China has developed in all these countries have helped it gain a hold in these countries and thereby encircle India despite the fact that China vehemently protests any such insinuation. While this was not a “done deal” until even a few years ago, recent developments in Maldives, and the problems in Sri Lanka and Nepal have added to China’s heft in the region.
Just as in the case of Chinese incursions in India, the Indian government and the ruling BJP seem to be more keen on controlling the media narrative than actually working towards countering Chinese influence in the region. And therein lies India’s problem.
Enforcing such diplomatic vengeance with greedy commercialisations, will make Lakshadweep a soulless beach with luxury cottages, requiring Indian celebrities bare their meat to bring in the much needed attraction… towards the beach I mean. Don’t we have sophisticated coastlines as part of our mainland to exploit? Obviously, these are unnecessary perils of allowing indian diplomacy to happen at twitter rather at civilised embassies. Just because some mumbo jumbo from Maldives called Modi as clown in twitter, we are raging to boycott meaningless unaffordable Photo-Op stuff with tall fake claims on cancellations?
If someone calls me a tomato, I transform to tomato and then chutney later, like clowns do? If the opposition or countries smell his weaknesses, don’t they employ it again and again to milk frustration? The only way out could be growing a thick skin rather growing a bigger stick of oppression. One can’t provide slippers to everyone to protect them from thorns / heat on their way. The only workable way out is making the path safe from thorns and heat. Or wait a moment… is it otherwise? Likewise, It’s best to keep away from thorny people, with a slipper skin, as its their craving hobby to clean others backs than theirs with stupid whataboutery. For example, How will one answer to this question, “Are you a Hindu Virodhi?” First of all its disgusting for anyone to answer / explain about their belief / personal matter. It’s something someone need to feel / keep within, rather explain to everyone around, by wearing it on sleeves. Afterall, not everyone is Modi to visit his Mother with an army of Photographers to showcase his love right? Thorny people cannot recognize their own faults, but good on creating conspiracies on others, self-destructing themselves in due course of time, even without any helping from their conspiracy victims. Karma! For example, BJP thrived on Ayodhya issue for decades, calling other Parties Hindu Virodhi and Appeasers. Now it’s stumbling on Ayodhya complications of its own making where they cannot get way easily. Jai Siya Ram!
In Maldives, Modi is a victim of his own faults, trying to enforce Yoga event in Maldives to the opposition’s advantage, who stirred up a riot whipping up “India Out!” campaign. EAM for so much of chest thumping about Modi being a Vishwaguru, dug its own grave by not even sensing the undercurrent of resistance towards India’s iron hand. Maybe EAM fooled himself thinking everybody will consult with India and everybody is listening and applauding Modi like the cronies pleased Modi in Vibrant Gujarat summit. But in due course even Maldives understood the need for moderation unlike India bullying with Boogeyman Lakshadweep, but only after insisting on Indian troop withdrawal. Maybe Mo-Sha should have exported EVMs to Maldives prior essentials supply. Given the majorly hostile situation of our neighbours, are we going to give a free pass to China to build its vicious string of pearls around India, by glorifying few thorny tweets from our neighbourhood? All China needs to do is to ensure some nilly-willy call Modi on disaffectionate terms and Modi’s twitter force makes sure we are enemies forever? Modi claiming to create international pressures with twitter trends and calling such childishness as diplomatic victory of Modi by handy media is epitome of laughable absurdity, unbecoming of a tall Leader we see as our PM.
Sadly, even beyond Nepal, the other neighbouring countries like Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have seen the emergence of ‘India’ as an divisive election issue, where a set of parties have successfully convinced the electorate of the proverbial ‘India hand’, in its internal affairs.
Moderating his stand against India will allow Muizzu that break from Abdullah Yameen and his prompt dismissal of three derelict officials, signals that. India must allow him that maneuvering space to temper down things without looking like having bullied Maldives into submission – tempting as that is, Nepal episode of the supposed ‘blockade’ in 2015 is instructive of how that perceived bullying can lead to permanent fractures. – Lt Gen Bhopinder Singh
What Modi did with Nepal enforcing an unofficial blockade in 2015, permanently ruptured diplomatic relations with Nepal, getting them closer to China, though India has a geographical advantage for exports through plains. Modi is doing the impossibles in diplomacy. he has successfully alienated friendly neighbours whom no one would have dreamt to side with China.
Nepal government says that besides allowing protestors to occupy the bridge, India enforced the blockade by stopping the movement of trucks. Nepal imports all its fuel from India. Of this, the Indian Oil Corporation depot, located a few metres from Raxaul bridge, has supplied nearly 60% of Nepal’s fuel needs – diesel, petrol, aviation fuel and superior kerosene – since the 1960s. A month after the blockade, to ease the fuel shortages, Nepal signed an agreement with China for supply of petroleum products. In the last week of October, China sent 1000 metric tonnes petrol to Nepal, but it was enough only to meet three days’ needs.
Mahesh Agarwal, an Indian businessman and a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh, the ideological parent of the Bharatiya Janata Party, is an unusual link between those on the Indian side and the protestors. Agarwal has been feeding the protestors two meals a day on the Indian side of the bridge since the blockade began. – Anumeha Yadav
Incidentally my lizard slaying friend is also a Modi fanatic. Modi is the master of whipping up invincible nationalism when it comes to stomping on tiny opponents like Maldives or weaker ones like Pakistan and Nepal, but denies getting beaten up if blows come from heavyweight dragons like Chinese incursions or RAW sponsored assassinations at USA. Let’s hope Modi will be eternally grateful to those two crows he killed in Balakot air strikes in retaliation for Pulwama attack. Of course, the crows were a bigger threat to National security, not that Police Officer, Davinder Singh who collaborated with terrorists to choreograph Pulwama type terror attacks.
Diplomacy is a complex issue for the opposition to derive mileage as BJP safely disguises its failures as national security. Even the cruel Pulwama terror got hushed up as National security issue, but the beheading of a Tailor in Rajasthan got fully blown getting to a logical end of propaganda – Silence, as the killers had BJP leadership links. Chinese incursions are a major failure for Modi and India, but Congress is lapping up criticisms on Nehru after 60 years. None of Modi’s diplomatic stance has helped the commoners, but only affected them like Palm Olein import ban inflating cooking oil prices, or losing export revenues in Nepal. His neutral stance on Ukraine war only helped his cronies to mint money out of Russian petroleum when Commoners suffered with unjustifiable triple digit petrol hikes. His friendly balanced(?) stance on Israel may look better now but in the long term, we may be antagonising the Arab nations affecting the expats working there, just like Maldives is not mincing words nowadays on Modi’s newfound Israel love and his measured mum on Gaza massacre. Modi is exposing his opportunist facet in diplomacy where all other countries need to do is to engage Adani or fill his pockets or cool him with dictatorial surveillance tools, to keep him on their side. He is slowly becoming no big deal lightweight, at time where South Africa is rising up to crisis pulling the west and Israel to ICJ.
Opposition might do well highlighting the issues connecting to expats in Arab land and inflation due to Modi’s revenge seeking attitude.
History repeats itself.
In 2004-9, Congress got its vote of confidence especially in the cow belt and North east, despite BJP lording over the States. Even 30-40% wins could change equations in congress favour for Lok Sabha. BJP winning cow belt seats in an usual phenomenon and there is nothing to worry about, if they are denied a clean sweep putting up a tough fight. Data states 2018 was an aberration and 2019 was yet another anomaly induced by Hardworking Mo-Sha with usually lethargical Congress growing arrogant with 2018 wins. The real problem was on setting high expectations as Congress got hyped up on its own illusionary success. Congress need to play quiet and spring surprises as they got nothing to lose in the cow belt for 2024 or otherwise be content with 50 seats licking their wounds aspiring for opposition leader status. Fortune favours the brave and hardworking. Status Quo will not work when there is nothing to lose.
The Journey of Mohabbat Ki Dukaan and its lack of last mile delivery.
Of late, the INDIA alliance is fighting on their own, fire fighting to put it decently for their seat shares. Mamta Banerjee’s taunts and dismissals and her phobia about the INDIA alliance Partners reached new heights. She completely forgot that she had to fight BJP rather Congress or CPI. Instead, she abused Congress doing yatra to to attract Muslims just like Himanta Sarma. And I thought the only similarity between Mamta Banerjee and HBS is their elitistic caste background, apart from being runaway Congress leaders. There are speculations that TMC was born on the advice of RSS, taking muslim vote share into account. As RSS fondly calls her as Durga and Banerjee giving them not bad report card, she ensured BJP flourished under her able leadership in WB. Only when she sensed an immediate threat of BJP during last assembly elections, she started few measures to stop RSS spread in WB. Even now RSS is flourishing very well under Banerjee’s rule with increased presence of Shakas and Schools.
On the contrary, Congress has shown utmost patience, even silencing ARC. Not sure if Mamta has method in her madness, trying to pacify a jittery BJP working all out like a paranoid Mafia Don to eliminate opposition. But, BJP cannot be fooled by such petty street taunts. So, one could conclude Banerjee is sniping at Congress and CPIM, as she is really concerned about her Muslim votebase shifting its bases to its roots. The consequences could be disastrous for Banerjee as she got already exposed on helping BJP in President elections. BJP has psychologically profiled her well enough to tame her with familial pressures, state fund crunch and there could be other unknown factors covering Banerjee’s sweet spots to make BJP palatable to her, including Modi’s admission of gifting Banerjee Saris.
The Problem with Banerjee is that unlike Nitish, she could not afford to ally with a communal BJP publicly, when Muslims decide on victory margins in WB, with their sizeable vote share. Nitish is anyway on his retirement path slowly dissolving his Party and feeding BJP with their vote share. So, I would expect her to ally with INDIA with ~5 seats to Congress or just go solo and lose ~15 seats to BJP, thus playing her shady role again like she did in Presidential elections… Congress is also at fault as they day dreamed on winning the cow belt states in 2023 and increasing their seat share and now left in the lurk, losing both. If Congress is serious, they need to conduct a multi-day get together events to make its Partners comfortable and hash out on the common minimum Program. INDIA coalition currently sound like fragmented states before independence ruled by Maharajas. The yatra seems doing well, but unless otherwise INC spends a day or two with its allies meet up periodically, to speed up their Union of States process, there is a clear and present danger of INC ending up with subpar results… again.
Apart from the lack of preparedness of the Congress with its allies, Congress is also missing on the lack of unified message on the yatra. RG’s speeches are well received as he keeps it precise, but it only elaborates on the BJPs shortcomings and poor governance. Has it offered any solutions where the public could visualize on their own – a better life with Congress in power? Has it provided the aspirations for the youth who are clearly disenchanted with the BJP and their lack of stimulus towards unemployment? Has it offered a clarity on their much touted NYAY except for the five fingers meaning something for everyone and what it actually means to them? Congress yatra so far has only raised more questions than answers to its participants who are still eager to see Gandhis providing them better future like they did earlier.
HBS gave the much needed emotional trigger to keep the yatra boiling on the publicity pot, but the Yatra as such has not gone through such high moments after his intervention, by reinventing itself with its clarity on objectives and resolution. Do understand conducting this massive yatra itself is a mammoth task, but leaving off other crucial tasks like seat sharing and broadcasting the USP of aspirational INDIA also makes it a mundane affair. Sometimes, what we need is efficient breaks to regroup and build on towards the next improved version.
What triggered me to write this part is Banerjee’s empty claims on Congress not even getting 40+ seats in LS 2024. This is obviously her own freudian slip, where her win-win dreams of making INC succumb to her wishes and simultaneously getting favours from BJP is not working to her liking. She is fooling no one in this process including her loyal muslim vote base. Congress could make up a lot more if it plays its last mile message delivery card well like they did in 2004-09 and even in 2019. How? let me explain.
Between the last two Lok Sabha election years, the number of BJP MPs securing victories with a vote share of over 50 per cent witnessed a substantial surge, rising by 88 from 136 to 224. In contrast, the BJP’s increase in the overall seat tally was more modest, rising by a count of 21 from 282 in 2014 to 303 in 2019.
What explains this? According to political analysts, the substantial rise in the BJP’s overall vote share by nearly eight percentage points did not translate proportionately into an increase in the number of seats. As a consequence, there was an uneven distribution of seats with higher vote shares.
ThePrint’s analysis shows that non-BJP parties secured a vote share of 50 per cent or more in 64 seats in 2014. In the 2019 elections, this number nearly doubled to 117 seats. Viewed as a percentage, the non-BJP parties’ seats with this vote share went up by a steep 82 per cent between 2014 and 2019. The BJP’s percentage increase was about 65 per cent. – The Print
To me 2019 is an election where the opposition could have done much better with coalition, but INC wasted the opportunity with the same cocksureness they exhibited after winning Karnataka state now to lose its cow belt states. They failed with a similar approach in 2019 after tasting victories in 2018.
There is another anomaly of data, where BJP got eroded of its presence in the South in 2019, with the opposition Parties winning convincingly. BJP was saved by its strong presence in cow belt states, having more LS seats to make a large difference. BJP is pourings its funds to the cow belt states, the tax collected from the developed South. Mo-Sha has also cut down the state share of taxes to ~32% level so, the South states are going to get much lower share than what they gave to taxes along with the cess and surcharges which the center keeps in entirety. So, with BJP playing as antagonists to the south, their margins are going to go down further except for few regional sentiments. Congress could do well with a campaign blitz of Gandhis along with their NYAY promise. They may have to educate the masses on how people’s money collected while buying soap and salt are diverted without a fair share to themselves to enrich other states who are again kept in “social darkness” to suit BJP’s interest rather investing on education and healthcare to bring them up. How long will the BIMARU states will be fed with other state funds, rather allowing them to grow on social indicators. BJP has successfully kept them in Dark by not allowing them to grow beyond their Hindutva / communal shadows as progressiveness is a byproduct of education with education eradicating all illogical evils like communalism or majoritarianism, which BJP cannot afford to lose, with ignorance being their flagpole to hoist their ideology.
Congress has done well in 2004-09 in cow belt states like Rajasthan, Bihar, UP and Chattisgarh improving its seat tally. If the congress improves the morale of the cadre along with the last mile delivery of aspirational message, they may do well in the same states now as Inflation is a major spoilsport for any mighty ruler in Delhi. Many of the elections have been won in India with inflation as a major concern rather other vitals like GDP decline. The 2014 election loss could be largely attributed to the inflation rather corruption.
If Congress lost 2014 on Inflation, what could be the reasons for its poor performance in 2019? The X-Factor could be congress itself. It might have been kept inebriated state with its then recent state wins. Don’t want to harp on EVM theory here as people understood how BJP practically steals elections with the Chandigarh mayoral poll. The decimation Congress underwent soon after its 2018 euphoria cannot be logically explained for, other than a magical Heist, only science could explain. Why BJP only tasted considerable wins fighting Congress alone in 2019 while losing even to State level parties? It just shows, Congress is lethargic on protecting EVMs on their vulnerability. On the contrary, BJP has studied Congress for its vulnerabilities and exploits them very well so far.
The 2019 elections were scheduled in such a way that, BJP’s clean sweeps happened in states where it happened in multiple phases. One reason could be that it mobilises its cadre across phases. If we want to buy this theory, then BJP would have scheduled its southern states in multiple phases as it has very small cadre presence there. Another theory is that, BJP usually schedules in phases in States where it clearly wins or its best bets where it has a strong cadre and designated Booth agents. In such cases, there is no point in moving its people as Booth agents and supporting groups are already at work. Any party which is strong enough to win, will do at one stretch to avoid opposition gaining by moving its limited presence across phases. So a logical reason could be that it moves its limited hacking resources schematically, for desired outcomes in phases as it cannot be done publicly. Such crookedness cannot happen at large scale as it gets exposed easily. To add to that theory, BJP has its Leaders as Directors of BEL Board- the EVM manufacturers and Programmers. BJP is running EVMs and elections as if it’s their Party Conference. The clean sweep states were scheduled on the last phases too, giving them ample time to course correct and implement their heist strategies. By that time, the watchdogs might have got fatigued too. So, BJP might have done its dirty work during loading of symbols phase as distribution of EVMS are not manual raffle but through computer algorithms, or vote registration phases where VVPAT system makes the EVM smart enough to get manipulated or swapping EVMs during its transportation phase.
Now let’s move on to the last case, why would BJP conduct elections early and on single phase in places where it is weak and not having a friendly bureaucracy? It should be having its plans on manipulating the EVMs in storage rooms. DMK in Tamilnadu have raised alarms on mobile toilet Vans sneaking at EVM storage campuses at midnight without any permissions. The only seat BJP alliance won in TN also faced the issue of EVM swaps. So, technology has improved so much making us too paranoid as its opens up many possibilities. What if they started hacking EVMs from satellites?
If the phased elections are tuned for BJP wins how would Mamta Banerjee / Nitish kumar win their State elections convincingly, which also happened in multiple phases? There are special chameleons like Nitish Kumar / Mamta Banerjee / Owaisi who are planted for Mo-Sha’s benefit. The pattern is such that, they all have different strategies for State elections. But when it comes to Union elections, they have always appeared to help Modi’s side, either by splitting Muslim votes or by combining with BJP’s vote share. RSS-BJP flourishes in West Bengal during Banerjee’s rule, where its still the main opposition Party in terms of assembly tally. Why this did not happen earlier? Finally, if they are not Modi’s accomplices and find their place in his chamcha books, they would not have been allowed to live peacefully. Abhishek Banerjee will be in jail by now. PK’s spot on predictions on WB elections or BJP politician predicting MP election with precise vote margins, could be either counted as statistics or tuning EVMs whichever side you want to jump for conclusion. Because PK was not so precise on any other elections like in TN where he was helping DMK.
There is another theory of BJP media that, States vote for regional leaders whereas Union elections are for Modi, contributing to +10% vote share. Almost all State elections won or lost are contested on Modi’s name, just like LS elections. The CMs are posted with a sealed envelope from the Delhi, as if Oscars are declared for the best loyal servant of Mo-Sha. So, except for few regional sentiments, Modi is a non-factor in elections. So, this argument holds no water. People are more focused on “What’s in it for me” in each and every election, rather worrying about Modi or some mushroom nourished Karadi Mama contesting elections. The fact is Modi has brought people down to a worse lifestyle owing to inflation and lack of economic stimulus. 2024 election so far, have not offered any such aspirational promise or ensured its message delivery from Congress side, especially when BJP has steadfastly stuck to its crony friendly policy with the recent Budget, faking its confidence.
I don’t see any other reason, apart from insignificant issues like biased funding and their progressiveness on why South States should vote against BJP convincingly in 2019 and North belt voting them in indisputable winning margins. So what else it could be? The exit polls consistently predicted Congress to win around 108-145 seats. But the results stunned everyone with meagre 52. SP+BSP went through a bigger shock with BJP doing an unexpected clean sweep. One may argue that exit polls are not reliable indicators, but in Mo-Sha era where every opinion / exit poll is milked to project their imagined supremacy, the exit polls might have given a dark pessimistic outlook of the opposition and surprisingly it is still higher than the actual results. Atleast many EVM malpractices were uncovered by Samajwadi party cadre in UP. Congress was lazy enough to even detect such malpractices in their head to head contests. If congress is serious about winning, it should hire agencies to smell of any EVM malpractices in its constituencies, rather relying on their cadre, who may not understand its nuances. No wonder now Amit Shah wants to expand his territory towards South and increase 10% vote share across all states for a win, as if voting is just simple calibration on a machine. He clearly knows however he maximises the EVM tuning, he has saturated his winning factor in North belt. He also clearly knows the drawbacks of his own governance but did not attempt to fix governance but choose to fix EVMs instead.
People have become more greedy and more cunning in a cunning society and more competitive in a competitive society.
J. Krishnamurthy
I went to a magic show organized on a small scale. The crowd was unwilling to get mesmerised by the show, asking the magicians questions and unraveling their bullshit. When he turned red paper to blue they cried “litmus”. When he took a rabbit out of his hat they insisted on checking the weight of the hat before the magic begins. After the show, I heard from the Organizers, that the magician lamented on the suspecting crowd and the show would have been great if they got surrendered to his illusion. Likewise, I understand all these theories quoted above, may sound like an illusion of possibilities. But, Science is also an illusion of possibilities. A cell phone could still be a magic if we don’t understand the concept of cellular towers and air as medium carrying RF information. Unlike magic shows, democracy is all about participating, not about surrendering to a dangerous ideology paving way for feudalism.
Magic will still be a magic if we don’t understand the skimpily clad assistants are there meant as distraction, an hindrance to see the truth, just like Celebrities lining up in an half done temple or Media trying to create an Utopia with their message that BJP is invincible / undefeatable. Unless otherwise we understand the concept of Magical election set pieces, it will get more mystified with every upcoming act. Only way to get out of this cycle is being alert and paranoid. That’s the main reason why even developed countries resort to paper ballots and strict SOPs where then president Obama was not even spared on ID checks. They are not just alert and paranoid but also developed economically while whole of India is still shown a carrot maturing in 2047, in wickedly frustrating terms of Viksit Bharat, all the while current economic carrots being farmed, are eaten away by Adanis and Ambanis. 2047 Amrit kaal is just another way of tapping into the middle class mentality of working hard for a secure future, asking everyone of us to toil in hunger till the Ambani / Adani stomachs are full and constipated.
What Modi has accomplished is commendable from the “other” perspective. He has systematically dismantled any Institution which upholds the constitution to a servile slave, tapping into the human weaknesses. Maybe he has just mastered how to enslave a human susceptible to any desire or sin, holding life dear, surviving at all costs bartering character for survival. He has established a much refined Emergency 2.0 where there are – Institutions, but no autonomy but slavery to his authoritarianism, Temples where there are no gods but Modi as the mythical god-priest, elections but no credible opposition and finally opposition Leaders – who are just circus clowns doing paltis and street level fights as per the directions of BJP. One got to see Banerjee’s reactions with this Prism.
Mo-Sha has successfully brought out the worst of Nitish Kumar / Mamta banerjee who once stood tall in normal politics, as beacon of the future. Now one is reduced to a Monkey doing palti acrobatics at the whims of his Master and once perceived brave tigress is rendered to a circus pet meekly surrendering to a supple messiah avatar to help BJP flourish with her escape act on Hindutva fire rings and dividing minority votes for BJP’s benefit, dousing the alliance of her own making. When Congress and CPIM got resurrected in West bengal, her cowardice came into full limelight getting down to a level of a street fighter vying to tap the Muslim vote bank. Unfortunately, for all Modi’s much touted systematic Hindutva transformation and Emergency 2.0, Muslims have proved again and again why they are vital to democracy just like Hindus or any castes with every round of Banerjee crying on top pitch, afraid of Congress more than BJP. How long can you fool everyone that they are secondary citizens?
With so much of oppression around and so many falling in line except for few pockets of resistance from Gandhis, Kejriwal, Soren and Yadav, I would commend them for withstanding so much pressure and still going on a path of love unflinchingly. May God Almighty Ram, if he still exists in our Hearts, if not on half done temples, bless them with success and strength to conquer Hatred.
Why INDIA will win 2024?
Of late, there are various Op-eds and churning of the media to make people believe BJP is on its way for imminent third term without any interruptions, like their ‘Bulldozer justice’.
But none of the Op-ed delve on their reasons other than quoting BJP’s wins on last election of 2023. They are the ones who quoted “Sources” on Poonam Pandey’s death without even checking any cremation happening around. By their logic, Congress should have won 2019 as they made a clean sweep in 2018 elections. The media also wrote the same about Congress prospects in 2019, only to synthetically change their tune after Pulwama event. The pattern is the same… generate an aura of inevitable win so that no one doubts BJP’s landslidE Victory March.
BJP’s invincibility is directly proportional to the invisibility of EVM operations. But, BJP’s “definitely…definitely winning 2024” quotes are a mark of freudian self doubt, just like chanting “Arjuna” to escape the lightning. If they really feel invincible, they could have reformed the EVMs and tallied with VVPAT slips to weed out any doubts or suspicion on the integrity of their election wins. Instead, they have removed CJI from the CEC selection panel, introduced VVPAT slips inculcating smart chips, upgrading the EVM from a dumb calculator of its inception times to a smart computer and then finally ensured 2019 VVPAT slips are destroyed even before any sensible audits or stored as mandated by Poll codes. If this is called as ‘confident 400’, we need to change its synonym to ‘Crooked 420’.
The Mind games of certainty BJP plays on opposition and voters gets me to this…
An Engineer, Statistician and Bureaucrat go to Modi for CEC interview.
First up is the engineer. Modi asks him what is 2+2 is?
The engineer a little confused and then answered 4 of course.
Modi thanks him and calls in the Statistician. Again, he asks what 2+2 is?
The Statistician states that, it’s a ballpark around 4.
Modi thanks him and calls in the Bureaucrat. Again, he asks what 2+2 is?
The Bureaucrat looks around, stands up and closes the curtains before he bends down and whispers: What do you want it to be?
Modi smiles, “You are appointed!”
If you wonder what CEC means, it actually means Chief Elopement Commissioner here, if you have watched Chandigarh Mayoral Polls or the haste with which they destroyed VVPAT slips in 2019. Looks like for 2024, we are going to get a special VVPAT machine which may not even show the slip printing but act as a magic box in tinted glasses, and stops the printing if you peek at it as its sensitive to light like a thief. 420! I mean the seats… Why not?
The Media writing off the opposition’s work, who have posed enough challenges so far to BJP, to quote Shikhari Shaambhu Guptas already talking about to-do list for Modi’s third term, to feed on the illusion of invincibility of BJP, and others chiming in with opinion polls and surveys about clean sweep as if a crooked EVM beggar licked his election plate dry, only proves one thing – Elections are still alive but the Indian Journalism is already dead. Media obscures any genuine protests and agitations or even simple questions on the authority acting as a loud mouth of the very authority.
Media has to stand for the righteous ends and means, working as an instrument and voice of the weak. Instead, it’s happy getting reduced to deadwood, printing out buffoonery to aid the naked emperor with their cosmetic verbose. More than cash for votes, it’s the cash for Journalism similar to the flesh trade, weakening the democracy a lot more. As someone who vehemently opposed BJP’s use of the word, ‘Presstitutes’ in 2014 SM, now the Media is just acting justifying the same word coined by the Modi-SM-Army. It’s not that Media men have changed, but the actual Media Barons acting as Substitutes for Modi Propaganda Machine, systematically replaced the righteous Journalists with complicit ones. Even long dead Egyptian Mummies may have more shame than these media Barons who feed on crony money and feed BS to its loyal audience. Journalists who have even lost their Job due to criticism of Modi are treated rabidly till date like the case of Nikhil Wagle and lot many who have been jailed on sedition clause.
Now, BJP brainwashes everyone, aided by media, with a 370+ projection and the opinion polls “give” BJP 365 seats. Is this a democratic election or some VVPAT program to come up with exact result even before the election dates are announced? Are they belittling the people who take up massive efforts to vote for their Leaders? Have you seen the mass influx of people before elections as if they are participating in a Puri Juggernaut festival. What the so called election Pundits and BJP is implying now is that Modi alone is enough to pull the massive Election Juggernaut. So why bother voting?
With respect to Media, what else could we infer, other than death of Journalism, from the once famed fourth pillar, now weakly built on toxic finances from Crony Corporate Owners who benefit a lot on Modi’s tax cuts, NPA dissolutions, Corporate incentives and Government Ads. They are simply unable to live and breathe the truth as they are restrained and collared by ED/IT/CBI, with their only option of remaining lap dogs of establishment singing paeans and narratives set by Mo-Sha.
Modi might have aspired for “Congress Mukht Bharat” by importing all opportunistic scumbags from Congress, turning his saffron party to dirt brown. He has actually helped Rahul Gandhi on his aspiration for weeding out the deadwood, he dreamed in 2017-19. It has now reached a stage where even BJP is realising the futility of deadwood Congress luggage like Kamalnath, by refusing to take him onboard. Well, the “Money bags for scum bags game” is not over yet as Mo-Sha has a superiority complex of managing headlines, waiting for an opportune moment like RG’s yatra entering Madhya Pradesh. Any congressmen who believes in their own mettle and future of progressive India would not have traded their Shawls. So, Mo-Sha’s expensive shopping of Congress scrapyard has only made Congress cleaner, meaner and aspirational. BJP is actually doing the expensive interviewing process for Congress.
Maybe Modi, by buying all Congress Junk, failed on his mission by making Congress better and resilient, but, what he actually well accomplished is “Mission Media Mukht Bharat”, like Willy Wonka trampling on eggy cheesy cake walk, trivialising the media to look much bigger circus than himself. The crooked media Circus the Nation do not want to not know… but forget as bad dream! Modi-Media cromance ( Crony-romance) reminds me of a tamil movie Nenjam Marappathillai dealing with triangular love where Hubby suffers from Cancer and his wife happens to be the ex of the Doctor who treats him. The story ends up with the Operation success and Doctor dies out of stress. Media Doctors are doing the same to themselves by doctoring the Fourth Pillar of democracy.
“Everything In This Room Is Eatable, Even I’m Eatable! But That Is Called ‘Cannibalism,’ My Dear Children, And Is In Fact Frowned Upon In Most Societies.”
Wonka Movie
Meanwhile, let it also be said that if the BJP regime in New Delhi was confident of re-election and so loved by all people across India, then the systematic picking off of Opposition figures via the ED would not be necessary. Counter-intuitively, across India, Modi does appear to be in an excellent position for re-election, because, if we liken the upcoming elections to a football match, one side will wear shiny new jerseys and control the referees, while the other side will find many players being shown the red card and sent off the field. The commentators will be cheering for the wealthy side, and will not note that fires are being allowed to be set if the challengers come near the goal. – Saba Naqvi
“In 2019, the party leadership decided to win more than 300 seats. Even Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said ‘Abki baar 300 par’ and we won 303 seats. Party strategists have set a target of winning more than 400 seats in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls to make Mr Modi the Prime Minister for the third time in a row and (EVM) preparation has started to achieve the target,”
BJP Leader
Well… India already handed over the keys to the thieves in 2014. So, they may even win 600 seats out of 543 in the land of largest democratic heists, still get certified as winners, going scot free of their crimes. Maybe It’s our democratic design where its purported guardians are programmed for money and adjustments and not for Integrity, our founding Fathers assumed us to be full of? Let’s dig further…
“I’m A Thief. Son Of A Thief. Brother Of A Thief. I Hope Someday To Be The Father Of A Thief.”
Professor – Money Heist
Modi’s rulebook capitalises on human weaknesses of greed and fear. Entice people with greed and if they don’t bend, then shove them fear down their throats. When Modi assumed Office in 2014, he did not have a crew to rely upon and imported all his Gujarati officials to establish his fiefdom. Modi’s introduction of his Gujarati cadre is analogous to the 40+ Wolfs introduced to Yellowstone Park. They changed things and how…
When the long white truck drove into through Roosevelt Arch on Jan. 12, 1995, it was almost like watching a modern-day Trojan horse arrive in Yellowstone. Inside were eight gray wolves from Jasper National Park in Alberta, Canada. They became the first wolves to roam Yellowstone since the 1920s when the last pack was killed. By the end of 1996, 31 wolves were relocated to the park.
Earlier, with elk populations being artificially high due to no or limited wolves before, elk had overrun Yellowstone and displaced many animals due to their feeding behavior. Plants used by various species were eaten by elk, while elk trampling affected what species could grow.
In the years that followed after reintroduction of wolves, wolves brought the elk population down and protected the open valleys from overgrazing. However, the number of elk killed was double than estimated and many local hunters stirred controversy by protesting that the wolves will end up killing ALL of the elk. Today the debate is still strong. Inside the park, scientists joyously exclaim that the wolves have saved Yellowstone. Cross the park border into a gateway town and you will surely hear how wolves kill for the pleasure of killing and are terrorizing ranches and wildlife.
Currently, nobody knows what positive change the wolves introduced to Yellowstone, except for killing the elk population. Few argue that the wolves made the remaining herds of elk stronger by killing and weeding out the weak ones. But, it has also brought in headache with increasing wolves disturbing the farms nearby and the declining elk population made Hunters complain for resource scarcity. Time will tell us if the wolves got hunted again to restore the ecosystem. Likewise, the introduction of Gujarat cadre at PMO, brought in its own change to the Indian political ecosystem, by hunting out the weak Bureaucrats, Judiciary and Politicians, enticing with greed or simulating fear with coincidental(?) morning walk murders and raids by ED / IT / CBI, while making the remaining folks stronger with resolve. Even now Modi could not come out of the Gujarati Bureaucracy circle, stands as a testament to Indian resilience. Maybe our forefather’s assumption about our tenacity for goodness is right?
BJP-Congress duel reminds me of the the Snow White story. The Queen witch who wants to be the “Fairest of the Land” makes sure no one fairer than her survives. I don’t know if she consumed magic mushrooms to attain her fair complexion. When Snow white became the genuinely fairest young lady of the Land, the Queen witch could not digest the fact and hired the Huntsman to kill Snow white and bring her Heart as proof. The huntsman deceives the Witch and spares Snow White, just like 2018-19 Congress capturing the Hindi heartland but losing LS election by deception, still left to live as they don’t pose a challenge to BJP. Left alone in deep forest directionless, Snow White meets the eccentric Seven Dwarfs who are hard working and good natured. They protect her.
The witch got a Truth Mirror. When she queries the Mirror on who is now the fairest of the land, the Mirror truthfully points out its the Snow white and she is alive and well. The witch now employs disguise and deception to fatally poison Snow white by making her consume a poisoned Apple. The dwarfs with genuine love for Snow White are heartbroken and arrange for her last rites. A Prince magically arrives and brings Snow white to life with a kiss of true love.
Whether one considers New India as Fairy land or Wonder land or Parody land, Congress reminds me of Snow White. BJP clipped their financial wings making them weak on resources, cut down their arms to make them suffer with lack of support, disillusioned them with deception and poaching, weakened them with petty cases and (un)constitutional suspensions and demoralised them by subverting democratic institutions to act like their subservient stooges… but still Congress keeps on walking, (of course after taking lot of rest) standing up for a greater fight. BJP understands the danger lurking and may try to clamp down the yatra with shocking excesses. But whatever happens… the Congress lieutenants could carry on, mobilising the public support and keep the Nyay narrative simmering among people making BJP feel its better to leave them untouched rather suffocating themselves with meaningless oppression, as such excesses will amplify their ruthless authoritarianism repelling people during election times, just like irrational suspensions at Parliament.
I read an interesting article lamenting how 70+ Members led by Dadabhai Naoroji had the conviction to demand empowerment / independence from the British and they slowly grew from that insignificant meeting to a Congress Movement. Congress of the present seems ailing to grab the victory, forgetful of its own might. Congress party was not handiwork of magicians but hard work of mobilising gullible people and educating them from slavery to freedom with mass outreach. Congress needs that conviction and grit now. Comparably they have a smaller task at hand. 35-40% voter base invariably still believe in Congress. Congress should work hard for those beliefs as its a positive belief of progression not about killing or undermining a sectarian group stirring emotions for profits. So Please….. Enjoy your life’s melons by making sweet marmalade and start thinking about elections, closing all the loopholes. Champion Congress is more than capable of checkmates and wins.
Elections are Truth Mirrors. No matter how BJP manipulates it, they will be in trouble if the VVPAT slip gets tallied. Opposition’s only job is employ private intelligence agencies to expose BJP before elections to rattle them on EVM heist, when they tune EVMs for symbols and “centralised” EVM allocations. I agree INDIA bloc is a rainbow coalition of Leaders of various psychological profiles, like the seven dwarves. But, each of them has won over BJP through various campaigns. Kumar(?) and Yadav on Caste / Minority empowerment, AAP on governance and services, DMK on socially progressive governance, TMC on ferocious fighting spirit, Pawar on Never say die attitude, Congress on economic progressiveness and what not. They all just need to fight… one criminal mindset, not a massive decoy Juggernaut. Somehow, BJP is digging their own trap by propping up Modi smokescreen as centerpiece, making their electoral enterprise expendable and degrading their minionistic demotivated cadre to insignificance which will bite them back as voters have realised Mo-Sha cult’s inefficiencies. INDIA Bloc should not worry if anyone drops from the coalition wagon and be prepared for eventualities. But the stalwarts together are quite capable of putting up a fight with Congress as their backbone. Time to get ready for the true princely kiss of victory from the voters.
I would like to reiterate… in the World conquered through Gun, Germs and Steel, it’s not the Executive Guns or the sword wielding Party cadre do more damage, but the propaganda germ preaching religious toxicity and fake invincibility. Its upto the opposition to ensure the germ is eradicated through outreach vaccine and raising right questions to the electorate to make them think of aspirational future for the cure. Germs ultimately die by themselves as only the good thrives in planet earth. Whether Snow White story or microbiology or Ramayana or Mahabharata, the good always triumphs over evil.
‘“தருமத்தின் வாழ்வதனைச் சூது கவ்வும்;
Bharathiar – Mahabharata
தருமம்மறு படிவெல்லும்” எனுமியற்கை
மருமத்தை நம்மாலே உலகங் கற்கும்
வழிதேடி விதிஇந்தச் செய்கை செய்தான்.
கருமத்தை மேன்மேலுங் காண்போம். இன்று
கட்டுண்டோம், பொறுத்திருப்போம்; காலம் மாறும்
. தருமத்தை அப்போது வெல்லக் காண்போம்.
The evil to be triumphed is not any individual here, but the concept of unbridled power making the rulers either corrupt or arrogant, stomping on the fundamentals and ideals framed to serve its people. If our system don’t address dictatorship prospects with appropriate safeguards, our political system may look like incentivizing mad authoritarian rulers.
Happy 2024!
Success is Saying what we Mean without being Mean
When Modi fought 2014, he cleverly mixed Vikas and Wickedness equally. He targeted the establishment as Dynastic with a weak silent PM and at the same time offered hope with his Vikas promise. He created positive aspirations with imaginations, making every indian dream of getting 15 Lakhs richer by electing him. It all turned out to be a Jumla / fake promise but he was efficient enough to deflect the people’s attention distracting them on PR initiatives like Clean India, Demonetisation to keep away from damages. Now, Vikas is forgotten and we are now moving towards Vikshit and Vish bullshit for 2047. the wicked Vish part of the campaign still remains the same, targeting Nehru and digging other dynastic graves as if Gandhi ghosts ruled India for last 10 years. Vikshit Bharat is a very clever strategy of skipping accountability with fake aspirations even after enjoying power for ten years. It’s like a student who could not pass academics for last 10 years, hoping to achieve it by 2047, just to silence everyone around. Modi Government wagon was running with a carrot tied to a long stick forcing the development go through treacherous Dunki route. Since the decade old carrot is rotten already they are now left with the stick, using it for their authoritarian excesses.
The Opposition campaign is more into wail of disappointments suffering with Modi’s dictatorship, making him look even more formidable from the eyes of the public. Modi is like mythical Vaali who gains more strength on such insults and mud slinging, leveraging them to create undeserving sympathy wave. Neech, Chaiwallah, Chowkidar Chor etc. But, Congress cracked the campaign code with aspirational Guarantees in Karnataka and Himachal. Unfortunately, Modi changed his tune from Adani-is-God to freebies-are-good mode. It’s a success for Congress in one way. Instead of being a replica of Hindutva Party, Congress was able to make elitistic BJP budge to its pro-poor populist agenda. It’s an open secret Modi is thriving on UPA time ideas. So, ‘Congress mukt Bharat’ obviously means ‘BJP mukt Bharat’. How else could BJP student copy and pass exam if the brilliant student is absent?
What is missing in the Congress’ campaign canvas is the lack of aspirational message captivating the fancy of the voters. Any hope to Children like full tax exemption for kids education and subsidies for education loans, stipends for meritorious economically backward candidates could make Congress look positive from parent’s perspective. Any hope to MSMEs with group insurance and other aids could be of great help. BJP Government has made the business process much easier than before but the economy is lacking to nurture growth. Any hope on healthcare could attract the lower and upper middle class, The GST of 18% for insurance is atrocious. The medicines are much costlier than MMS era with reckless hikes on essentials. MMS made conscious attempts to lower medicine prices amidst growth triggered Inflation. Congress is not even reminding voters of its immediate past glorious legacy, whereas BJP is successful in depicting Congress as corrupt. The narrative needs to change with captivating shorts, making people aspire of the New Congress rule.
Inflation is the biggest issue. The NYAY scheme of offering 72000 Per Annum for the poor is nice to hear, but it will only make the lower middle class aspire to become poor to get such sedentary benefits, triggering inflation, pulling down the economy further, instead of accelerating growth. Such high amount looks like lottery and people may not even believe such high income coming for free. Instead INDIA bloc should consider spreading out the incentives across the poor and lower middle class and make them work for it with signature campaigns or asking for feedback. DMK’s incentive scheme is a decent start with 1K as monthly income. Ideally, such incentive schemes will do more benefit to the Coalition if they spread it across a wider base by keeping around 1-2K per month. Anyways BJP has smelt blood and may roll out the initiative soon.
INDIA Bloc will do a lot better if it caters to aspirational basics like affordable Healthcare, Government utilities and Education along with triggers for MSME sector and gig economy workers. AAP’s success was mainly due to catering to such practical aspirations with effective implementations and of course giant size PR.
Of late, Congress has upped its game balancing the yatra campaign along with INDIA coalition dynamics. The Speech made by RG at Varanasi was impressive and unusual of his amiable and uneventful speeches so far. It raised questions on why the youth of India has not arisen to such injustices meted out by Rulers and intoxicated to toxic hate campaigns, getting noisy on idol politics but silent on idle politics of unemployment. Congress will do better if they understand Kejriwal-Anna campaign did not reverberate across India but only in few pockets of politically conscious urban areas. We are having a similar situation right now, except for the absence of media whipping out well-sponsored, concerted and sensational anti-Government dog whistle, like they did in 2012-14. The undercurrent of anger is simmering in the underbellies of every Indian. The INDIA block needs to tap it well. The speech though a bit harsh on voters still stuck on me because it had a genuine affection like an elder Brother prodding his little brothers for good. I unconsciously tweeted out addressing him as Bhai after hearing his speech. The speech as anticipated, got viral and BJP jumping into it to damage themselves further. If BJP thinks they can steer it as anti-RG, this is exactly what the Anna movement did with such well-meaning questions without looking to milk voters works well among electorate. Energised RG is just doing a VP Singh + Kejriwal on people. Hope we get such interesting campaign speeches, but also making a brotherly connect so that his genuine concern is taken up well even among BJP IT coolies.
The Worm’s eye view of the Nyay yatra and the King Cong.
I was blessed with an opportunity to be part of the spectatorship of the yatra as concluding part of my pilgrimage trip. The trip was an enriching experience in many ways exploring places of different culture and background. As we worship many divine powers set in various forms, why not we encourage our very own ancestors and fellow humans on their footsteps who have made our lives better with the visionary stroke of governance and policies? To give a context… with my family background of weak financial past, my parents tried their best to provide me good education in best school but it was also difficult after an extent where I was evaluated for vocational course to get a Mechanic job on fast track.
It’s the then Government’s Institutional support which made me an Engineer. It’s the Application evaluator at ITI Government Polytechnic who encouraged my Father to make me pursue on higher studies. It helped that the evaluator turned out to be Father of my classmate. Truth could be stranger than fiction but my native town is a small world. “Seats? Get on merit and with subsidised fee! Still difficult to pay fee? Get an educational loan at minimal interest. Jobs? Our policies are encouraging enough for free market and healthy Job Market. ( NCBN in Hyderabad turned literal hard rocks to Cyber Castles in late 90s) No Worries!”
During our college when we were lethargic / playful, our Professor, who religiously takes out a list of term fee defaulters and help them with money, used to say, we are all not aware of the Lakhs, Government spends for each student as subsidy. Apart from good samaritans we come cross in our life, our elected Governments have always acted as an invisible God Father providing a better lifestyle and education to the aspiring middle class and poor who needed an helping hand… Government is a big ugly juggernaut which could be testing our patience, but still there can’t be denial that it has helped our destiny in ways where we cannot alter as an individual. Although we loathed them enough and stayed apart for their decaying ethics, except for the recent Modi’s decade where the governance is stooping down to historic lows and we are hooked to him with his Maverick PR, thanks to paid media and crony sponsored giant propaganda machine. Modi is a trend setter for sure, but Congress and Vajpayee under BJP acted as Life changer for the masses.
There are many reasons compelling me to participate in this yatra on the sidelines. Firstly, Politics is a thankless Job. The way a section of Indians, being promoted from fringe to mainstream of late, abuse Gandhi and Nehru stands as a testament to its rewardless-ness. As citizens we are also habituated to demand the politicians for accountability while we treat voting as an optional practice, choosing vacation over election. Slowly, Mo-Sha Govt is laying out ridiculous penalties like 110 crore fine for leaving out a 10 Lakh return in Congress tax returns, freezing their accounts just before elections. Our silence will only embolden them further to do the same to us sooner than later, as they can always hound us systematically citing lame laws and rules, like they arrogantly do to a Partly holding ~30% vote share. If we don’t take our voting seriously, we might end with tax terrorism and systematic dismantling of dissent and accountability.
Secondly, It’s very difficult to correlate the broad strokes of Government policies to our own empowerment nowadays. What you see with every policy is that either the Government is directly swindling money with GST, cess and surcharges, or it aids its cronies waiving off NPAs, Windfall taxes and Corporate tax. It’s much easier to talk about our own merit. But a good Government’s help makes our merit, actually meritorious, like a two handed clap. It actually took me long to realise how privileged I was then, only when I start thinking about my kids’ future where simple merit may not be enough. Caste and Money may diminish such merits in next ten years if we allow BJP to go further on their brahmanical cause and crony capitalism. Giving such due credits to Congress might be easily brushed off as extrapolation/ Fakery. Not everyone is a PR maniac like Modi, begging for publicity, placing their photos/ selfie Booths to earn credits due. Modi’s greatest asset is that there are no abstractions. Policy talk is not his political game. Just plain and pure hatred to stir your neighbourhood Hindu-Muslim envy along with Straight PR for each and every penny he spends for poor while hiding the billions of Dollars he donates to his cronies.
Thirdly and sadly, I am sure such an healthy meritorious environment of our past does not exist for my Kids or all kids of India needing a short or long rope from the Government to succeed. The education has become very expensive where Kindergarten schools are charging Engineering College level fees. We are moving towards gurukul age where lesser ekalavyas of poor and middle class are demanded their fingers as fee, while privileged by birth elites are cushioned with a special EWS quota along with centralised elitist NEET stuff calibrated even with zero mark cut-off to suit the elitist needs. The inflation, reckless penalties of the Government and depleted savings has pushed me to the verge of seeking a spiritual trip to regenerate Hope so that we could still live with self-respect in this country. After all, self respect is the major asset, this feudal government wants to snatch back from us to lead us from the top and to make us bow down to their One-Nation-One-Nonsense agenda.
While divine forms can give us solace, what are we people, when we miss to greet our great ancestors and fellow Humans who have enabled better lives for us. There might be multiple first loves and numerous second chances in politics and our own life, but what matters is that, are we repeating the same mistake or course corrected for better. Just like we seek second chances, second second chances and second second second chances but never leave the fight to live and prosper, good politics needs its second chances too like crop rotation. There is no point complaining about missed opportunities of Congress, when I have not moved my ass to even consider the county’s future and vote for its best. Nobody is perfect and our politicians are a certain nobody. At this juncture it was natural choice for me to be part of this yatra, though in a pretty insignificant manner as one among crores of people cheering, “Lage Raho Rahul Bhai!”. And it turned out to be a full-filling experience.
Having said the reasons behind my political participation on the sidelines, happened to meet Rahul Gandhi on his Yatra at Nashik. It was amazing to see someone who could criss cross India selflessly enduring great pain and obstacles laid out by rulers. RG’s first appearance seemed like a seasoned politician with mild sun tans with amicable and assuring presence, of course with scars of his troubled past earned through fighting the establishment for a decade, but shorn off his princely image. His nose reminded me of the old cartoons of Rajiv Gandhi with a pinocchio nose, not too long though. Other than such resemblances, if you follow his yatra, his speeches are more like VP Singh 2.0 craving social justice and empowerment. RG seems like Yogendra Yadav type of activist (whom I was happy to watch on sidelines), rather a dynast politician Prince craving for succession. RG is not a person who keeps commoners at arms length unlike power hungry leaders’ exhibiting their superiority and insecurity in road shows. People keep flocking towards his vehicle like bees to Honey and he seems fearless and at ease mingling with people despite his ancestors sacrificing their life due to similar compassionate traits. Maybe it’s the greatest genetic asset of Gandhis – empathy.
If this Cathedral is a rupee you paid as tax while buying black salt – 20% goes towards India development and 80% towards Crony development.
While RG is evolving to be a firebrand speaker shedding his polished image to that of a no holds barred rustic politician, wish he also focuses on Inflation and atrocious taxation along with the Caste quota pitch, as “Pocket and Identity” matters act like a double barrel gun hitting the voters straight to their conscience forcing them to think through the deception weaved by Modi 2.0 media. Inflation was the major reason for INC failing in 2014 rather the synthetic corruption narrative. If corruption alone failed Congress why was Muzzafarnagar riots got orchestrated then? It is to kindle the neighbourhood Hindu-muslim envy that Onida Devil ad captured very cleverly, along with pocket / purse matters claiming Muslims are getting more privileges with the UPA regime as appeasements. Ram mandir is the culmination of, “Look I have got my Onida TV!” moment.
Spirituality irrespective of any religion is supposed to be an inner engineering to strengthen ourselves by deriving Hope and Belief. Spirituality across the Planet is not designed as an exhibition of our belief system / show but as an internal exercise conducted in Private or in religious communion. When we don’t even afford to share our Mobile to anyone for an hour, for the sake of privacy, how are we fine with wearing religion on our sleeves on streets and public places? If you are not convinced, I have seen few complaining about azaan as soon as Modi came to power, though they were living in the same locality for decades without any complains. In fact there are was a PIL case to ban azaan citing noise pollution. The Judge gave a befitting judgement as below
The Bajrang Dal petitioner claimed that “noise pollution” caused by azan when played through loudspeakers affects people’s, especially children’s health and causes inconvenience otherwise.
A division bench of Chief Justice Sunita Agarwal and Justice Aniruddha P Mayee asked the petitioner whether the noise of bells and gongs during `aarti’ at a temple is not heard outside the premises’.
Azan is conducted for a maximum of ten minutes at a time at different hours of the day, the court pointed out. “We fail to understand how the human voice making azan through loudspeaker in the morning could achieve the decibel (level) to the extent of creating noise pollution, causing health hazards for the public at large,” it further said.
The Gujarat High Court underscored, “We are not entertaining this kind of PIL. It is a faith and practice going for years, and it is for 5-10 minutes. In your temple, the morning aarti with drums and music also starts early at 3 am. So it does not cause any kind of noise to anyone? Can you say the noise of ghanta (bell) and ghadiyal (gong) remains in temple premises only and does not percolate outside the temple?”
Perhaps, if the petitioners approached a certain Bella in our top court, they might have found sympathising solace on how such prayers brings blood on her ears. Currently Bella is busy, filling Jails with non-saffron-compliant-opposition members as if Prisons are hosting Housefull Blockbusters. RG is working on Mohabbat Ki dukaan by giving MP tickets to the same ones who loathed him. So much for Congress’ organisation skills and screening committees, doling out tickets to Hindutva Bhakts. Likewise, we certainly need a shop for shame where people could feel that emotion, catering to certain Bureaucrats and Judiciary members.
With due respects, there is still room for improvement in INC PR to connect with audiences narrating their daily struggles and then entice them with simple ideas / resolutions of Paanch NYAY, providing a level playing field for their betterment. The metaphors like Shakthi are nice and abstract, but also gives room for the opposition to gain mileage by twisting facts.
Throwback Thursday: Onida’s deal with the devil
To stand out among these highly-competitive brands and to clinch a piece of the consumers’ mindshare, Onida had to devise a clutter-breaking marketing campaign with an emotional impact.
Back in the 80s, television was an aspirational appliance. The ones who owned a good set were quite often the object of their neighbours’ envy, an insight Onida anchored its ad campaign on. Anyone who has felt envy knows the might of negative emotions.
“Onida tapped on this emotion of consumers and promoted their brand as one that non-owners would ‘envy’ and covet,” points out Mitesh Kothari, Co-Founder and CCO, White Rivers Media.
Envy is also one of the seven deadly sins, and a mascot that could embody it in its entirety was the devil himself. Accompanying the ad was Ashok Roy’s tagline “Neighbour’s envy, owner’s pride,” which became inextricably linked to Onida for decades and many taglines later.
Soon, everyone gathered enough courage to use the devil in the print and the next set of advertisements exhorted the potential customers to “Give the devil his due”. The Devil had taken centre stage.
A few people had a differing opinion on the mascot and the answer to the critics was the launch of new TV and the new campaign “Should the new Onida be banned” with the devil under a guillotine. The critics were silenced, the new ( 56″ err… ) 21” TV went on to create history. Onida becomes the No.1 TV brand in India by 1987.
At least Onida was kind enough with another tagline, “Love thy neighbour, Guard thy Onida!”. But BJP’s appeasement accusations mirroring the envy Onida tried to provoke actually worked very well in pockets on India. If it did not work, RSS was smart enough to create riots and Malegoan blasts, aptly coined as saffron terrorism by Chidambaram. Anyways now we are in a state of nothing to envy with our neighbours by enacting CAA and UCC laws. But you know envy and Hindutva are a gift that keeps on rewarding for RSS, that they might find appeasement with SC/ST/OBCs, they once found with Muslims, as the actual beneficiary house is that of Nagpur Brahmins.
But, there is a catch in this devilish story… sadly or happily(?), everything has its expiry date, especially Brands built on negative emotions have much shorter life span. When a new Devil got revived in 2020’s, people did not take it seriously, finding the new Onida Devil not so “appealing”. When other brands sustained well with their mascots like the cute Amul Girl, Onida could not push further their negative agenda which was once a market winning sensation. I still have an Onida LED TV which is top class, but Onida Devil is not anymore a compelling Buy.
If INC failed on corruption in 2014, why Modi is still considered teflon coated on similar corruption charges? Why BJP’s corruption charges on Kejriwal are not working at all? People evaluate Governments more on whether they are placed well on the social matrix, rather how clean the rulers are. Everybody knows elections are money guzzlers. One of the reasons why “Chowkidhar Chor Hai!” failed is because corruption is normalised. There is no shock value for corruption and scams, except for amusing memes. Even if INC need to build a narrative on electoral bonds, it needs to connect to the common man like how Pharma companies were given a free hand to sell medicines which failed test standards with hiked up prices, rather Modi as Hafta Vasooli. How our money taken from pockets while we buy soap / pencil is being used to feed Ambani in the name of defence deal. How hard earned taxes of the people are being gifted to Adani gift wrapped as Infra / Ports. The PR bottomline being that, the end product of the campaign should hit a commoner’s pocket and heart rather singing paeans about Modi.
There are many charges of dynasty about the Gandhis… If you really don’t like dynasty concept in Politics, RG who chose not to marry fits better than the anyone who married and then abandoned his wife. In fact its their glorious legacy of indomitable ancestors being the very reasons why I admire and revere Gandhis, whom I believe ensured a better life on merit providing a level playing ground rather backstabbing with EWS type policies favouring a certain sect. BJP buffoons may deem the admiration as Nehru-Gandhi cult while shamelessly bowing down to Modi cult for their survival. The reality remains that people are not very kind to Congress / Gandhis on their faults and shortcomings, including myself. Congress has lost pockets of significance towards Regionalism, Communalism and their own corruption.
Congress does not groom an iron curtain cult like Modi coterie do by threatening people. Modi cult is a very synthetically nurtured potted plant by his PMO, which may not last, soon after he leaves office, whereas Gandhis are an organic phenomenon, having evoked more criticisms than orchestrated admiration. Gandhi Vs Modi is the clash of mass and class, wherein the Mass leader pokes our neighbourhood Hindu-Muslim envy and basal instincts with taunts and punches like Rajinikanth and the class Leader wants to elevate Tamil Cinema to next level at his own expense like Kamalhassan. Be it Election or Cinema, Mass and its allied emotions are required as a vent to escape our mundane realities now and then, but class is the actual lifeline to make our future better. It’s the choice between battling a war to vent our basal emotions or standing the test of time by building an artful Ellora.
Without naming any political party, Murthy said that no country could make economic progress without “freedom of faith” and “freedom from fear.” Many interpreted his remark as a dig against the BJP government. In May, according to a Press Trust of India story, the Infosys Foundation—an NGO run by Infosys—found its registration cancelled by the home ministry. The NGO put out a statement claiming that it had voluntarily applied for deregistration in June 2016. The PTI, however, has stood by its story and has not issued a correction.
Regardless of the ambiguity in the case, now that the Modi government has returned to power, Murthy seems to have had a change of heart. On 23 August, he said that the Indian economy is in the best shape it has been in the last three hundred years, despite an avalanche of evidence that might contradict his statement. – Caravan
Now Narayanamurthy’s favourite pastime is not Country / Bengaluru real estate as it used to be, but his worker bees who are required to collect honey for 70 hours a week while his 4 month old grandson, being gifted 24o crores of his stocks, to ensure he sleeps 70 hours per week peacefully ( to quote a tweet), while he was lamenting about not providing enough incentives to his employees. Let’s console ourselves that the communist of the past treats his grandson as future Infosys employee.
Dropping off from the cult debate with the Murthy specimen, on how Modi cult is a synthetically nurtured potted plant, now onto illustrate the reach of Gandhis… let me explain an incident. I was buying fritters from a shop in the North. The shopkeeper seeing my name which is more telugu-ish than tamil, but still asked me a strange / scripted question, “Do you support anomaly in Tamilnadu?” I guess he was actually referring to a BJP Leader but might be a bit fervent, just like snake venom drug seller Elvish yadav’s supporters trending “ElvishaYadav” or “ElvishAmry” synchronously with spelling mistakes. I remarked “No Politics!” and left the place. As they say say If you don’t do politics, politics will do to you regardless. The crux is that many political leaders still remain as anomalies while Gandhis have a legacy of sacrificing selflessly for the Nation’s vision. It’s exactly the reason why Modi wants to destroy Nehru-Gandhi legacy by poking holes on dynasty.
Despite BJP’s relentless attacks, RG seemed to be the Man who is destined to end dynasty rule, choosing to not marry and coming up with another version of little Gandhi Prince(/ss). He is logically a much better choice as a Leader compared to someone who abandoned his own wife and now shamelessly claiming entire India as his family, ofcourse except for his estranged Wife.
If Modi really considers Indians his family, why cant he make life easier for the poor rather acting like an agent for the ultra rich, selling India and framing policies as per their wish. The Ambanis are able to convert and utilise a Military Airport for their personal pre-wedding function. But, the BJP cadre calls the incentives to the poor as alms, while they are glad to beg the Corporates for electoral bonds to buy opposition MLAs and MPs. All the while common man had to do KYC with aadhaar and iris imprints even for a simple banking, shopping or availing utility services, BJP was happily swallowing money from their donors without asking for a single ID check, with Chief Election Commissioner even vouching for safeguarding the Privacy of donors donating to political parties. Wonder what are these guys running? Government or Cabaret show with Shayari… to ask for the privacy of their crony clients?
To me Modi is an excellent fit as “Parivar-drohi”, having hiked up the substandard life saving medicines by taking bribes from Pharma companies in the name of electoral bonds, allowing them to frame policies, having hiked up basic fares in Government run Infra facilities like railways so that it could be handsomely handed over to Adani types in future, even earning 1230 crores in three years with penalising cancellation fee, having hiked up surcharges and cess for essentials like fuel / LPG so that all his parivaar / family have to part themselves part of their meal plates to pay Modi his taxes. I have seen family men sacrificing everything for their family’s betterment, but cant believe a (fake) family man could afford all ill-doings to his own family and still proud of claiming his tortures as service to the family, acting like a power drunkard harassing his own family to buy more liquor to remain intoxicated, claiming to drink for his family and liver health.
“We must choose either champagne for a few or safe drinking water for all”
Thomas Sankara
When the BJP came to power in 2014, the price of one Dollar to the Rupee was ₹59. Today, the BJP has increased this price from ₹59 to ₹84! The weakening of the Indian rupee directly impacts your pocket: • The value of the rupee decides at what price we get goods imported from abroad.
In 2014, if any goods came from overseas for 1 dollar, we had to pay ₹59. Today we must pay ₹84 for that same good worth 1 dollar. The extra ₹25 we are paying is because of the falling rupee. • When goods being imported from abroad come to the country at a higher price, people in turn will also get them at a higher cost.
• India imports 80% of its crude oil and must pay for most of it in dollars. India is now buying fuel at a higher cost due to the weakening of the Indian rupee. Every time you go to the petrol pump, the weakening of the rupee is having an impact on your pocket.
• When fuel becomes more expensive, the cost of transporting goods increases. All goods – including food – are becoming more expensive. When you go to the market to buy groceries, you are paying higher prices due to the weakening of the rupee.
• When inflation increases, the RBI will also raise interest rates to control higher prices. Due to an increase in interest rate by RBI, your loan EMI will increase. You are now paying more interest to the bank if you have a home loan, car loan, or education loan – all because of the weakening of the rupee.
Before 2014, the BJP would make big claims on the relatively smaller declines in the strength of the rupee. Remember the typically uncouth remarks made by the-then Gujarat CM, linking the rupee’s value and Dr. Manmohan Singh’s age? The rupee’s value fell below the self-proclaimed Vishwaguru’s own age a long time ago. Today, amidst the drastic plunge in the value of the rupee, he is nowhere to be seen. – Jairam Ramesh
If you ask Modi, he might be actually happy that increase in dollar prices will increase the prices and his taxation, with more revenues, without any understanding about the demand playing a crucial part in economics, just like his expensive Vande Bharat trains not many travels, but manufactured in abundance. For Modi, demand is not the key, but empty esteem that India is shining with flashy trains. The reality is that Modi is so drunk on power that he cannot realise the truth that he is living in an inflated 420 Blunderland. The truth is that “Family man Modi” has taxed the roti, kapda and makaan of his own family to an atrocious extent where the family is now running short of roti. The memes feasting on each and every BJP advertisement from commoners stands as a testament to Modi’s legacy of eating India for his own hunger for power. Modi did not stop any war as claimed in his advertisements, but he has stopped his fellow citizens accessing their growingly expensive food plates due to reckless GST and inflation. “Family Man Modi” is an excellent lead for the opposition to destruct him by leasing his own weapons.
Coming back to the yatra, the atmosphere at the Nashik city was vibrant. The folk musicians and performers gave Gandhi a befitting princely welcome with a very enjoyable performance. There was genuine admiration lingered around for Gandhi as most of the people who waited to catch a glimpse of him are commoners across various religions, though media paints Congress as Muslim Party and even the route seem to be muslim dominated old city area as an acknowledgement to such propaganda. There was a carefully calibrated post by Assam CM HBS on the yatra’s reception in Muslim and Hindu areas. Let’s hope Gandhis don’t fall prey to such vicious posts.
Wish Gandhi operated across areas in forthcoming campaigns rather restricting himself on few demographic assumptions. Maybe such similar low assumptions might have made RG choose Wayanad over sure shot Amethi LS constituency. Unfortunately such decisions don’t give much hope to the cadre and voters, especially when RG is pinning his 2024 narrative on social justice for all religions and classes. It’s like a battle lost even before it started. What will Amethi people think when RG is contesting on two seats and gives assurance to the other constituency that he will not let them down? Does not that actually imply he will let down Amethi even after a win. Contrast that with Kejriwal who had insignificant profile compared to Modi but was ready to wage the fight in Varanasi. Even if RG fails in Amethi, (which is almost impossible if he contests only in Amethi), he might always enter Parliament through RS and other by polls. Fortune always favours the brave who got nothing to lose. Kejriwal is the only politician who was able to improve his electoral footprint in Modi’s era. Sincerely wish Congress takes its battle back to BJP doors and their strong pockets in cow belt, rather putting up fences in its small strongholds.
You are voting for Reliance and Adani Asura Shakthi eating up India. Vote wisely.
On the yatra, the cadre was busy on the routines and slogans as its a huge event demanding resources and manpower, with stages and arrangements. But what captured my attention are the many volunteers across ages without any IDs, earnestly distributing pamphlets who don’t seem to be affiliated to any party. The Pamphlet was a routine affair lacking the professional PR touch of BJP. Wish it had a catchy cartoon or illustration with very few salient features on front page and details on the back page. INC will need a “PayCM Karo” type simple and catchy illustration for their NYAY outreach.
Congress could easily make inroads in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Odisha, if it stays relevant with an aggressive and professional PR, like they did in Karnataka, as the opposition can consolidate votes. The Paanch NYAY promise is a pretty workable and winning formula with full appreciation for the minds who work out such strategies. What congress lacks is a Door-to-Door push to make that promise a workable reality with a touch of easy PR. Nothing works like a face to face campaign at various levels, the reason why Modi makes so many campaign visits to bolster his support. They could employ cartoonists to explain the deficiencies of BJP Government along with the solutions proposed in their NYAY guarantee. They will need a clear problem statement visuals along with their NYAY solution to take it across masses. I am confident they may do well here too.
Let’s get everyone to the table…
For the Northern belts, BJP does not enjoy any massive wave as propagandised, but one can assume they will carpet bomb in the last week to capture swing voters. Congress will need a strong cadre and PR support to withstand such PR assaults with ideas reverberating with the voters triggering their imaginations for better India. 2024 need to be made as battle of ideas against an empty “Modi Modi” slogan.
Why is Congress / INDIA important…? Because you miss your freedom and choices with Modi regime like this man’s tooth and eyebrows.
Be Secular not Sick-ular.
There are reports and debates questioning the success of this yatra. Silly and unfair metrics were used to gauge its success, citing the celebrity and INDIA allies participation, small congress leaders dumping at synchronised moments to dampen the yatra momentum and finally, hurdles placed by the ruling BJP government etc on permissions and other schemes to divert the crowd. When I first tasted Masala Doss at an Udupi restaurant, it tasted great and refreshing. When I tried the same second time, it was still good but lacked the surprise element, tingling the taste buds. I had to order Mysore Masala dosa the third time to make it taste different. But, still I got addicted to the same dosa because it was full-filling and satisfying. Well, it gets the job done!
I would view the yatra in a similar Masala Dosa prism, where it was refreshing on its start but still doubtful and thrilling if it will culminate as planned covering mammoth 3600+ Kms, but now marching towards unshakeable steadfast outcomes with efficient outreach amidst double the adversities laid out by the ruling establishment. Even the flavour of the yatra got changed towards resolution of people’s issues, stepping up from harmless goodwill trip. In the dark age of New India, where the so called Bengal Tigress is forced to eat saffron grass and Paltu-Ram still made to do the Joker act of non stop paltis and weak leaders are crying powerless succumbing to BJP’s ED-IT-CBI pressure, what Gandhis, Kejriwals, Sorens, Thackerays, Stalins, Pawars to name a few stonewalling these canonised efforts to declare New India as electoral autocracy, finds definitive place in the heroic pages of modern History of India.
The Nyay yatra could be compared to the farmer’s protest with respect to Government’s handling. The first one was considered a major success with the Farmers able to seamlessly march to Delhi. On their second phase, Mo-Sha took it as a prestige issue, ensuring the roads are turned to forts in siege with multiple concrete barricades and employing brutal force like tear gas and rubber bullets, as if they misconstrued farmers to terrorists. The Government’s response was just a shameless display of brute power. Only fools will consider such oppression as Government’s success or Farmers’ failure, as the issue did not get resolved, only getting aggravated with each passing day, strengthening the farmer’s cause. Modi may turn to MSP policy to placate farmers just before election, but he just made them wounded lions who may hurt him more in UP, anyways Punjab is a done deal, provided SP is able to stem the EVM manipulations. Likewise, the second phase of the yatra went through utmost oppression from the start, only making the Congress cadre and his supporters even more resilient. A stronger Congress cadre could be a major takeaway of this yatra. Clearly, BJP is going to have more headaches compared to 2019 as reflected in Mo-Sha’s nervousness as they are tackling a double whammy of angry citizens and energised opposition cadre.
The yatra also made a strong statement of an unstoppable RG bulldozing through obstacles, emerging as firebrand speaker evolving his narrative to that of social justice from simple Unity concept. The crowd reception was great, though I wished RG walked a few miles everyday, like his first yatra to provide a sense of participation rather just spectatorship, as any method of participation will boil down to a commitment to vote. To me the major derivative of this yatra is that the Congress acquired better clarity and vision for 2024 election, hearing from the ground, reflected on their brilliant Manifesto. Although, the Congress manifesto looks good, DMK’s manifesto was better on addressing day today concerns like Inflation with very simple price level assurances and education subsidies. Wish it had more on Pharma and Railway reforms, but it has the potential to easily reach the masses connecting on their daily affairs rather a high end vision put forth by Congress. But, we need to be clear on the Centre’s responsibility, which is at laying out a big picture, especially in a tricky context where even basic needs are not met, need to be handled at Municipal Corporator or MLA level.
Eventually, our team realised, even in a developed and educated city like Bengaluru, people want personally from their MPs what they should collectively organise for, or solicit from their corporators, local bureaucrats or MLAs. They want a direct solution to their local irritants, not abstract rewards.
One sweltering day, in a fancy apartment complex, after my impassioned speech on how Nandan, if elected, would help drive systems reform, one man nodded wisely and said, “Wonderful. But what will he do about my crazy neighbour who feeds stray dogs at 1 am?”
In middle class neighbourhoods, people asked what we would do for street lights, or to keep their park green. In one such park, a lady probed — “You want my vote free or what? What will you give me?” When I mumbled something about a hardworking, ethical candidate, she was amused.
In slum areas, people were still desperate for basic services. “Bari neeru kodi, saaku,” they begged. If you can provide water, it is enough. Others spoke of electricity, transport, and hospitals. This was their one chance to pour out their frustrations to candidates and their crews.
Eventually, our team realised, even in a developed and educated city like Bengaluru, people want personally from their MPs what they should collectively organise for, or solicit from their corporators, local bureaucrats or MLAs. They want a direct solution to their local irritants, not abstract rewards.
None of these demands are unreasonable. Many, especially on basic services, are critical to meet. The question is, who should be fulfilling them? It cannot possibly be up to the MP, who has no authority or legally sanctioned resources apart from a meagre MPLAD scheme, to meet any of these aspirations. If he or she has to please such a voter, the winning candidate has to perform a politics of patronage and brokerage.
A modern democracy needs enlightened politicians to work with efficient bureaucrats to solve forever more complex issues. Too often, our laws and policies are signed off on without any discussion. Too often, we the people can’t see how that affects our day-to-day lives.
To take just one example, the Telecommunications Act 2023 cements the power of the government to suspend internet services. No urban voter even knows anymore how to live without the internet for more than a few hours. Do we not need our MP to intervene to ensure internet shutdowns can be ordered only in the rarest of rare circumstances?
For the nearly 2 crore new young voters, policy issues may be critical for what they care about most — the future of work. Similarly, for women enrolling in larger numbers than ever, laws and rules on safety and health, equity and access, may be even more important than immediate relief. – Rohini Nilekani
Maybe Congress needs to balance the expectations of its electorate as we may not know even the basics like Constitutional rights or whom to ask for basic needs. People may not fully understand the abstractions of Policies, like BJP manipulated RG’s abstract abstract quote on “Shakthi” to their advantage. Maybe this is why DMK operating with a micro level manifesto, may easily hit the right notes among the electorate rather the Congress manifesto acting at much higher abstraction and needs neat explanation and elucidation.
I chose to take up the employment (Berozgarh) empowerment placard to hold up during the yatra… I won’t blame any Government for my lack of employment past my prime, though it could be attributed to circumstances and human leeches circling around me who want to starve me to near death so that I am hungry enough to prey on gullible, discarding ethics and humanity. Feels like I am being taught a comic lesson on lunatic barbarism, without any consideration for conscience, but with animalistic hunger for money, where I am tamed to be a barking dog made obedient and silent, clutching money bone in the mouth, to quote Shourie on media. Time will tell on my destiny if manipulations work or Karma will give a double punch back to the oppressors, but I am pretty sure that the opportunities knocked at my door at my prime career ( without any inertial evil forces resting on me then ) are not available at the moment for the aspiring youth. A 2BHK costing 5 lakhs, skyrocketed to 50 Lakhs in a decade, correlating with the salary hikes and buying power of the boomer kids then. Nowadays, the real estate has stagnated for last ten years, but 7 rupee per month education of few decades back has skyrocketed to 7000 per month education where the quality is nowhere improved. No wonder Arvind Kejriwal who had shown courage to regularise education fee is put up in Jail, as he could be the only threat in future who has both intent and courage to accomplish a service based governance. Mo-Sha knows very well many other rulers are just malleable puppets who are afraid to jump to their Hindutva compound owing to their progressive secular vote base. BJP Maharastra is experiencing such conundrum where the Leaders of the state are bought or brought in by ED, but BJP is struggling hard to get their workers to work for its Hindutva agenda. Now as a Boomer Uncle, can only lament that the present youth are being diverted with cheap data and cheaper misinformation rather getting groomed for strong fundamentals required for the Nation.
We are a “Nation of dystopian level distractions” enacted from the Top PMO to street level “anomaly” leaders, trying hard like pathetic Insta Influencers to capture our eyeballs, toiling to to establish an Clickbait-Bharat for thought control rather Atma nirbhar (self reliance ) Bharat. The only self reliance happening is now is on our social media defecation with cheap data and Chinese mobiles.
How many of us run families with our posts and tweets, except for Political Parties and allied influencers?
Now, don’t believe on Government blaming it on war for all our economic misfortunes. In fact, our cronies were the actual beneficiaries of War, acting as a conduit, selling cheap Petroleum from Russia to Europe without even paying windfall tax to India. When USA faced a similar situation with the second World war as they were the resource suppliers for the Allies, (only pitching into the war after Pearl Harbour episode,) their Rulers and administrators ensured a Superpower in making, trouncing the then mighty UK. Even our independence struggle cashed in on UK stuck on World War, upping up the protests to make the British budge. But, our current rulers are busy enriching Cronies to top Forbes list and our Administrators are running a shameless nanga show to please the autocratic rulers, without even counting our VVPAT voting slips, as if elections are magic show on EVMs.
Early capitalism is a very different beast. Corruption has historically accompanied the rise of capitalism. Consider the period 1865-1900, when a primarily rural America went through its first big capitalist transformation. Through his literary eye and intellectual foresight, Mark Twain first detected the essence of the new economic turn. In 1873, he called it the “Gilded Age”. Cutting all sorts of deals with governments at various levels, America’s first billionaires — the Carnegies, the Rockefellers, the Vanderbilts, the Morgans — emerged on the scene. For laying his railways lines, declared railroad baron Jay Gould, “I wanted the legislatures of four states… so I made them with my own money”. The so-called robber barons simply “bought” governments and legislatures.
A cleaning up began under President Theodore Roosevelt (1901-09) and the results, in part, began to show. In 1860, compared to Western Europe, America was a laggard. By 1910, the US had become the richest country in the world, leaving behind Britain, an industrial leader for over a century.
India needs a Roosevelt not Modi to mend the economy of our democracy. Not convinced? Let’s say a friend of mine / yours came up with a game. The rules are simple. First count the number of orifices in your body. Then count your accomplishments in the past decade under BJP rule. Whatever the difference, usually Orifice count wins over accomplishment count, meaning BJP is stuck in there. Now, if you imagine your accomplishment count winning, congratulate yourself for living in a Fool’s Paradise, unless you are A..ani or A.ani to put in your fingers err… excess accomplishments somewhere else in BJP’s… Because your count is just like counting EVM votes rather VVPAT slips, where we are all compelled to lose to make BJP win virtually.
Cheers! for cheering your own loss… or let’s add a fair play reward to our “smoking guns and roses err… orifices” game.
If you are counting on building your own house as an accomplishment, think over the atrocious 18% GST on building materials and recent hike in price of raw materials.
If you consider your kids’ graduation as an accomplishment, think over the high prices we are paying as School and coaching fees. Will your kid be able to recover the whole cost of education with the gig economy paying in 10s and 20s, by changing red and green t-shirts, which will again need you to buy a vehicle running on expensive petroleum? This may sound pessimistic, but latest ILO survey reveals 83% of our youth are unemployed. Just think about it from the parent’s perspective, who would have had high hopes, investing their sole life and savings to ensure Kid’s bright future ending up with a big blackhole of hope. ILO report states Indian youths with a graduate degree are 9 times more likely to be unemployed than uneducated Indians. On my personal front, I got a campus placement, but unfortunately it got withdrawn due to poor financials of the company. I still remember a day when my wounded Father asked me, sitting idly before a computer after graduation about my future plan in a polite tone. I could not answer him, but for an empty hope of things changing for better. Maybe my Father would have thought I would have been better off with a vocational course rather than higher education. Fortunately, another arm of the company which got split, employed us back and the pain and penury did not last long other than few months. But, imagine youth spoiling their lives in present times hooked themselves to internet, so as to forget their insecurities for years.
If you consider your business profit as accomplishment, think over the Bank fee and GST surcharges you paid which could have increased your profits making your business grow further. Government has earned 35000 Crore with penalties on Minimum Balance while dissolving tens of Lakhs of Crores debt of Corporates as NPA. What kind of Government feeds on the poor to keep their crony masters rich?
If you have become fit or recovered from illness as an accomplishment, how much extra have you spent on medicines and Hospital fee which has increased 200% in last five years? Even crucial Medical insurance attract 18% GST with our Government.
If you have bought a vehicle, think about the Road Tax you pay and then tolls per KM on top of it which actually quadruples your Road tax. Apart from that, you have to pay State Taxes if you relocate to a different State. The same BJP Government which has centralised Vehicle database, earning 100 Crores by leasing our vehicle data to private entities, could not even do One Vehicle, One Tax making us Bakras of extortion with Traffic Police, who are baying for some silly reason or other to meet their revenue deadlines.
The comparison with South Korea is more appropriate, for its gilded age, starting around the mid-1960s, had a distinctive feature. Unlike China, it was a gilded age with “national champions”, such as Samsung, Hyundai, LG, Hanjin. These were the so-called “chaebols”, essentially family-dominated muti-sector business groups. They flourished under government patronage, as did the South Korean economy. But corruption accompanied their rise.
The greatest difference between Korean chaebols and the Adani group is that the former were heavily international trade-oriented. Government patronage notwithstanding, Samsung, Hyundai, LG have all been in tradable sectors. They have produced cell phones, computers, electronics, semiconductors and autos, and competed with the world producers. International competitiveness thus has provided a disciplinary check on their businesses, generating huge efficiencies.
The Adani group is mostly in non-tradable sectors. Seaports, airports, grain warehouses, electricity generation are not internationally traded. They are both government-patronised and domestically focused. The efficiency gains that come from international trade are not there. The Adani group is not a Samsung — there is very little it can sell on the world market without the help of Delhi. Nor does it compare with the international competitiveness of India’s information technology sector. Compared to South Korea, the Adani-government nexus is a very different kind of national champions’ strategy. Its implications for the larger economy simply can’t be as beneficial without international competitiveness. – Ashutosh Varshney
So, Adani-Ambani are not producing world class Apples / LGs that our economy becomes super-rich like South Korea. Infact, they have reduced our country with large debts where every Indian has 1.5 lakh of debt per head. What Modi has spawned is a “termite economy” where our Businessmen don’t do any value-addition to our economy but leeches on our carefully nurtured equitable consumption model and national resources, be it PSUs / Infra / Tax coffers, relying on domestic consumption. This termite economy is what you get after Modi’s famed Pakoda-nomics. You cant consume too much of Pakoda owing to lack of money or its ill effects of gastritis. Industrialists who rely on domestic consumption as they don’t innovate, cant sell much owing to saturation or lack of money. They can’t sell their produce abroad with their dirty ethics and low quality manufacturing. Forget about selling abroad, they can’t even stand on their legs without Business Agent Modi. We are stuck up in total economic illness spiralling down in this vicious cycle of reduced consumption and reduced revenues of Corporates, solely relying on domestic consumption, who then desperately barge into National resources and other basic lifelines like roti, kapda and makaan to save themselves from accounting red blush.
Sample this… As soon as Adani enters FMCG, we get brutal Farm laws. As soon as Ambani enters online retail, Online shopping gets a clampdown. As soon as Ramdev starts selling noodles, Maggi is declared harmful. It’s another story SC reprimanded Ramdev for selling spurious drugs with misleading claims even causing death scenarios. As soon as Modi came in 2014, the Job growth got stunted as his mission is not about Service or Governance but to gift the coveted Indian infrastructure to the Adanis. When GVK Group declined to part with their asset, Mumbai Airport, CBI barged to ensuring Adani gets his gift. The railways need to be seen from this Prism as the general classes and Sleeper compartments are curtailed purposefully to make it an elite friendly transport, qualified enough for private takeover.
Adani entered Cement manufacturing after 2014 and the price has increased from 230 INR per bag to 435 INR per bag. Same cement increased from 110 USD per Metric ton in 2016 to 150 USD per Metric ton in USA. Ambanis are big players in Petroleum and major puppet controllers of BJP regime. Petrol got priced at 70 INR per litre in 2014 when crude hovered around 95 USD per Barrel. Now Petrol is priced at INR 100+ pr litre when crude is at its lowest at 64 USD per Barrel from Russia. Biden is struggling to address Inflation among American public, going to the extent of decrying corporate greed accelerating inflation. What are we doing in India? Instagram Likes and Whatsapp forwards of our PM, while bleeding with inflation. In short, Corporates are capitalising on our basic needs, destroying well oiled Farm, Oil, Infra and retail sector, hiking up prices, is the major reason why our quality of lifestyle has decreased as the prices hit astronomical highs on food, clothing and shelter needs, leaving us with nil disposable income or even struggling to meet our daily basic needs. We are heading towards savage “Cannibal-nomics” where every seller of goods or services, squeeze you to limits until you can’t afford it.
If you are convinced Government sponsored extortion is happening with the help of Government enforcement Institutions like IT-ED-CBI, how will you classify the Government looting poor’s money with 35000 Crore collected as Minimum Balance Bank fee and ATM usages? How will you call the atrociously increasing toll fees along with road taxes? How will categorise Government levying 18% GST on Medical insurance? How will you justify the 5300 crore collected by abolishing Senior citizen subsidy in Railways or 1230 crores by cancellation fee, just by creating artificial demand by reducing economy coaches? How will you softly defend the price rise on our lifeline needs, to aid cronies, when the price rise is not reflected globally but synthetically stimulated to aid cronies like Petrol / LPG price hikes? The truth is that extortion is happening at all levels from BJP’s non compliant Industrialists being forced to pay electoral funds, to SMEs forced on GST penalties and its complex maintenance, to the poor paying Surcharges and cess on their basic common needs.
Wonder if World Leader Modi could stop war as propagandised nowadays, why can’t he avert simple livelihood affairs like unemployment, inflation and corruption for our greater good? Because he thinks Lies are far better weapons than actual governance. Modi’s thesis on elections is such that, as long as reality pinches or Hunger hurts your stomach, simple brain simulation or stimulation is enough for the people live in the mythological Thrishankhu’s Heaven
In the 67 years since independence till 2014, the total debt of the country was Rs 55 lakh crore. In the last 10 years, Modi ji alone increased it to Rs 205 lakh crore. His government took about Rs 150 lakh crore loan in the last 10 years.
Today, every citizen of the country has an average debt of about Rs 1.5 lakh. For what purpose was this money used in nation building?
Were jobs created on a large scale or did jobs actually disappear?
Did the income of farmers double?
Did schools and hospitals shine?
Was the public sector strengthened or weakened?
Were big factories and industries established?
If the above doesn’t happen, if core sectors of the economy are in disarray, if the labor force has declined, if small and medium businesses have been destroyed – then where has this money gone? On whom was it spent? How much money was written off in this? How much money was spent on loan waiver of big billionaires?
Now the government is preparing to take a new loan, so the question arises that instead of getting relief to the general public for the last 10 years, when the burden of unemployment, inflation and economic crisis is increasing, why is the BJP government drowning the people in debt? – Priyanka Gandhi Vadra
Overall, if you play fair, you will realise that the Government is not involved in a fair play but a “fair and lovely” play with a certain Gujarat model as their mascot, with the only whitewash happening is over government hosted money laundering in the name of electoral bonds. Whenever that Gujarat mascot wags his finger in campaigns, realise who / where it is pointing to… so as to provide a “fulfilling” experience. Well, the immorality of this irreverent political game is that, it’s actually the change craving middle class, which vigorously vouched for BJP in 2014 and 2019, got screwed in all orifices by this regime, having lost the plot. They don’t know if they voted for vikas or viksit or just pure and plain wickedness of communalism. “Jai Sri Ram!” has just morphed to “Hindu-Muslim” war cry with enmity and submission exercises. Just like the infamous BJP Washing Machine powered by ED-CBI-IT which makes any political crook, criminal and fraud as pure as Milk as soon as they join BJP, Vikas and Viksit has disappeared like the stains after surf excel wash. You will never get it however you search for it! Maybe that’s why Surf excel reminded us that “Stain is good!”
BJP’s accomplishments being EWS quota for elites, a doubtless Brahmin appeasement at the expense of socially backward classes where EWS cutoffs are much below SC/ST cut offs, along with the enrichment of their cronies happening at economic middle / backward class expense. The opposition is toothless to shame BJP on the same shameless appeasement it is doing with brahmins with EWS quota. Instead, they are even afraid to support Minorities even on criminal atrocities like Bulldozer Justice and riots. The so called development / Vikas never happened as the cronies are busy looting our nation for onshore investments, even after the Finance Minister begged them to invest in India. As law of currency states that money can neither be created nor destroyed but only can be transferred, ( meaning One person’s debit is another man’s credit. Every Indian has 1.5 lakh debt per head while Adani and Ambani are among the richest persons in the Planet.) BJP has successfully doing the load-man Job of transferring our tax money to Adani-Ambani coffers, by cutting corporate taxes and gifting our Infra, resources and PSUs. Our youth obviously need an helping hand to come up amidst all adversities laid out by this developing nation, rather acting awkwardly “backward blind” acknowledging only the privileged with saffron governance.
“The greatest mistake India can make is to believe the hype,” he said. “We’ve got many more years of hard work to do to ensure the hype is real. Believing the hype is something politicians want you to believe because they want you to believe that we have arrived.” But it would be a “serious mistake for India to succumb to that” belief, he added.
Dismissing Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ambition to make India a developed economy by 2047, Mr Rajan said it was “nonsense” to talk of that goal “if so many of your kids don’t have a high school education” and drop-out rates are high.
“We have a growing workforce, but it is a dividend only if they’re employed in good jobs,” he said. “And that’s, to my mind, the possible tragedy that we face.” India needs to firstly make the workforce more employable, and, secondly, create jobs for the workforce it has, he said.
Mr Rajan cited studies showing a drop in the learning ability of Indian school children to pre-2012 levels after the pandemic, and that only 20.5% of grade three students could read a grade two text. Literacy rates in India also remain below other Asian peers like Vietnam.
“That is the kind of number that should really worry us,” he said. “The lack of human capital will stay with us for decades.”
“The ambition of the government is real, to become a great nation,” he said. “Whether they pay attention to what needs to be done is a different question. I worry that we’ve become more fixated on prestige projects, which suggest more great nation ambition, such as chip manufacturing, while leaving the underpinnings that will contribute to a sustainable chip manufacturing industry.”
“What we need is a pragmatic approach,” Mr Rajan said. Quoting China’s former leader Deng Xiaoping, who spearheaded that country’s economic reforms, Mr Rajan said if India learns anything from China, it should be that “it doesn’t matter whether the cat is black or white, it matters whether it catches mice,” he said. – NDTV on Raghuram Rajan
Having said that, overall, the yatra, pitching on social equality, is a moderate success as an early campaigner for INC hitting all the right notes, though the subsequent outreach / surveys and last few days of campaign making voters to introspect the last ten years along with Congress’ promises, will play a major part to their electoral success. My partial success assessment is not due to any lack of organisation or enterprise, but the Job is still yet to complete.
So, Gandhi’s Yatra was a nice culmination to my trip, fully brimmed up with hope and positivity about strong future for India, provided we Indians take our time to think what will help us out and our Kids, rather getting blinded by glamorous campaign blitz. It’s our choice, whether we establish Brahmanical supremacy by taking the hatred route hurting fellow Brothers or establishing a God Fatherly Nehru-Gandhian vision of democracy where everyone flourishes on a level playing field?
The sleeping Gandhi Giant has woken up… Now, how about Us? The ball is in our Court! We play it to win or lose the hatred game forever to a brahmanical cause which will affect our generations forever rendering them as substandard citizens of Bharat, except for the elite few. It’s going to be a very tiresome election for INDIA bloc as they are fighting a Juggernaut powered with pyramid loads of money and shameless rulers dare to go to any length to succeed, exhibiting reckless power by emasculating democratic institutions.. But with meticulous resource and mobility planning and hitting on the crucial last five days at door step canvassing, INDIA could achieve the summit.
The advantages and inadequacies of Rahul Gandhi.
Modi wins not just because of his toxic agenda or goondagiri of his team, but mainly due to his sheer hard work. He works like a maniac and ensures his team works like dog till the end, quickly course correcting on obstacles rather taking things easy. While RG could be a far better Leader compared to Modi, where Congress under his leadership lacks is on creating ripple effects in PR. People of Gandhi caliber has the potential to spread message wide and deep irrespective of the gags and clampdowns. But so far, RG has used the opportunity only to complain on the decay of democracy or lament on helplessness of the Congress going through tough adversities like freezing on campaign accounts. Any mass leader is expected to provide a resolution for the crisis like Paanch NYAY. But, how will the public perceive their promises when Congress itself is not showing the will to recover with resolutions on their own problems? That’s exactly how BJP raises the seeds of doubt or suspicion about Congress among people, while it could not do the same with Kejriwal as he smartly counters their oppressive clampdowns.
Ideally RG, as a Problem Solver, should have come up with resolutions or fightback on IT atrocity with crowd funding or other means of door to door collection campaigns like Communist effectively operate, the best way to take their message forward. But, it’s been a while RG complained, but he has not opened any avenues of resolution for his supporters or commoners to help him out or participate. Kejriwal has his inefficiencies, but when he went through similar adversity of illegal jail sentence on the same day IT froze Congress money, his supporters were on the streets wearing “I am Kejriwal” campaign dress, issuing pamphlets all around like how a typical Corporate like McD operate to attract footfalls and mind space. This would not have happened without Kejriwal’s or AAP leadership guidance.
Supporters need firm directions to operate. Instead, you could still see Congress supporters whining over EVMs in Social media. BJP can capture CEC position, but the majority of the working crew is honest who could be tapped to capture EVM anomalies. Let’s keep in mind BJP could not even tame the three member election commissioners authority and still threatening / shuffling them to keep them supple. So, ground support is not an issue. RG as a seasoned insider of Bureaucrats, might be well aware, it’s the lack of will to resolve and act which has plagued Congress so far. Instead, Congress is kept busy with MP ticket tussles which has some meaning only when they win through and achieve significance if they are able to keep their flock intact and immune from Adani-Ambani money flowing through “Operation Lotus” tap.
Manmohan Singh was called as weak and indecisive. But he was actually the opposite. His courage of conviction that India as a power hungry country needs various forms of energy helped UPA-2 sail through. Even on the questions probing corrupt UPA-2, MMS offered solution, calling for tapping into the honest people in the bureaucracy. Sorrily, Congress is nowadays not seen with such decisive conviction and action towards resolution, even when they are comfortably placed as opposition.
I do not believe that I have been a weak Prime Minister. That is for historians to judge. The BJP and its associates may say whatever they like. But if by “strong Prime Minister”, you mean that you preside over a mass massacre of innocent citizens on the streets of Ahmedabad, that is the measure of strength, I do not believe that sort of strength this country needs, least of all, in its Prime Minister.
I feel somewhat sad, because I was the one who insisted that spectrum allocation should be transparent, it should be fair, it should be equitable. I was the one who insisted that coal blocks should be allocated on the basis of auctions. These facts are forgotten. The Opposition has a vested interest. Sometimes the media play into their hands as well. There were irregularities. But the dimensions of the problems have been overstated by the media, by the CAG sometimes, and by other entities. – MMS 2014
I think none of the leaders have even rose to the stature of MMS from Congress, in deflecting criticisms or putting firm accusations to rest with conviction and resolve with a positive plan. Congress needs firm voices who are not too political but with an ability to influence voters with integrity and knowledge. Maybe INC is deploying Raghuram Rajan for economics and Kharge for Organization to help Gandhis on PR. But their message has not reached the cat-on-the-wall demography which needs a gentle nudge, so far. Maybe, its INC’s PR game plan as quoted by Manoj CJ to operate on last phase on its promises and aspirations. Hope it’s not too late and INC may lack the PR machinery of BJP, who has the capability to send their centralised message in 20 minutes across its Whatsapp groups in India. The bottomline is that if Modi is so confident of his lies and betraying Indians, INC should damn sure of its truths and its development philosophy.
Why Congress is winning the 2024 Political narrative?
Now, why would Congress be so sure of its truths? In the last decade, Congress fumbled a lot in its first five years, only to spring up with a 2018 Jackpot election results but clueless how it worked out to be a win. 2019 unravelled the reality for Congress by losing States in quick succession owing to Crony sponsored Operation Lotus. To me this was the actual turnaround point, where Congress threw off its shackles of imaginary cuffs and came out of the well of lies weaved out by Modi, just like Dark Knight Rises Well of despair. RG came out with a giant leap with his pada-yatra, birthing a Marathon moment for Congress, that it’s not to be taken lightly how bad the situation is. Some of the Congress leaders are complicit with the wavering Congress before the yatra, including its old guard, supporters and critics like G-23. Except for few like Digvijay Singh, none took up any exercise to strengthen Congress then. The Yatra gave ideological clarity to Congress it long lost after 2009, the Welfare politics simplified with very simple protocols to reach out, rather chasing Majoritarian coat tails as dictated by BJP-RSS. All you need to do is just vote for Congress and see the magic. It actually worked so well for Congress, that Modi is now murmuring “Modi ki Guarantee” even in his sleep. BJP’s recent Madhya Pradesh win could be attributed to Congress scheme of Monthly allowance for women.
In last 10 years, only now Congress has set the political narrative with its guarantees, which Modi religiously follows at least with lip service..
Why this “as usual welfare Politics” should be seen as a major success for Congress? There is nothing great about the Congress guarantees as they were seeded even in 2019 or Karunanidhi offering free Rice decades back to Tamilians decades back. Kejriwal’s political brand is built on the same plank of Service Governance Politics. But, Kejriwal is an insignificant player without any major threat to BJP, except for his small fiefdom of Delhi which is again remote controlled by Shah. BJP woke up to Kejriwal’s gradual vishwaroop only after he acquired sizeable vote share in Gujarat, by clamping down his resources and arrests. So, Congress is the only Party of present times, which could pose a challenge to BJP whose success is directly proportional to BJP’s loss. Sadly, Congress was playing like a Kindergarten school of RSS prior yatra, with its temple run and running away from Minorities. Congress stood like useless Juggernaut without any Wheels. The fact is that in 2019, RG was more interested in resigning his post on election loss rather questioning the dubious success of BJP. The post-Yatra successes of Himachal and Karnataka Governments stands as a testament to an immune congress with welfarism and social justice as a viable political approach. Congress lacked such courage of conviction earlier.
If Congress was lacking the will to fight, Modi is a Corporate Businessman at Heart lacking the will to serve the poor. All his policies and implementations are either authoritarian or crony oriented. Aadhaar is a one stop switch which can make a citizen, zombie of sorts, at the mercy of his autocratic Government. All the Public Services like Trains, Banks or Utilities levy higher fee / surcharge even for the basic needs. Any subsidies given to the poor and middle class like Senior citizen subsidy in Railways or LPG subsidy got cut off in an obscure method like a thief barging into our Purse. The BJP is also active in rooting out Government run Hospitals as in Madhya Pradesh. Modi also ensures even the basic lifelines like Ration / Vaccine as his own alms with an outsized Photo of himself, bigger than the actual dole itself. While the poor and middle class got squeezed on taxes and subsidy cuts, the rich were gifted with Corporate tax reduction, dissolution of ten of lakhs of their dubious loans and brutal laws to make them Oligarchies like the Farm laws. When Indians got rendered more hungry and oppressed, the regime’s only benefactors featured on the Forbes as World’s richest, a feat that never happened in 70 years of Congress rule.
In this grave context, Modi’s “guarantee chanting” nowadays shows Congress has turned the situation on its head from being a clueless lame Bakra on temple runs towards making Modi lose his sleep on their guarantees. The Major difference is not the actual welfare promises, but Congress’ investment of its manpower and resources with confident message and decent outreach, soon after the Bharat Jodo Yatra.
The crisis is not ending for Congress, the EC is shameless enough not to allocate poll symbols for INDIA alliance. It may even go down to the level of disqualifying candidates citing some lame reason or other. So, the Opposition should keep a backup nomination ready in case of emergencies and withdraw later based on the situation.
Its still quite probable BJP might still emerge as the largest Party, but INDIA could be the one Bharat Mata likes to serve her as Government on her behalf! As Comedian Vadivelu says, “there is no end” for Congress…
Happy progressive elongation with INC or endure prolonged communalism baggage with BJP.
Maybe I am going too far.. But just for fun!
Wake up Call or Sleeping Pill?
Now… It’s up to INC if they treat 2023 loss as wake up call or as sleeping pill, by viewing this loss as a blessing in disguise or as approaching Congress’ doom. So, Cheer Up to fight against all odds. After all few battles are lost to win the war. BJP is trying its best to offer sleeping pill to Congress, by creating an illusion that it’s invincible. With exit polls setting expectations for any shock wins and opinion polls claiming a clean sweep in UP etc, it bets on people and opposition that they cannot scrape through their castles built on lies. They are trying their best to put Congress on the on the mat even before the fight begins. If the sleepy Beast could capture Telangana in a year of turnaround, it could win Lok Sabha too in 4 months.
Now, why I am so confident of INDIA bloc wining the 2024 elections? Its not just because I am underestimating Mo-Sha and his shameless gang, going to any depths to win. It is not just because the opposition is now more promising and menacing with all the stalwarts and heavyweights aligning themselves like a constellation. My confidence is only because India has always won on its goodness. Our ancestors’ goodness trumped the Colonisers. Our collective goodness overthrew Emergency era. Similarly, however we adjust to circumstances, our goodness will win over this mindless barbaric authoritarianism. Never underestimate the power of Indian goodness. But for INDIA to win the war, it needs proper analytics and study of demographic behaviour to start with, rather getting carried away with biased-cooked-up-Sunil-ish-surveys stating …. “We are winning even Washington!”.
Houston Err.. Delhi! Apna time aayega!
Anonymous Me.
Timepass Politics 