2020 Strategic and Political Analysis-1

[nvishal]

The sindhi, the punjabi and the bengali: wouldn't these be three major Indian sub cultures and not castes.

Each of these sub cultures have their own castes and sub castes.

I prefer to categorize these cultures as "ethno-lingual castes". The word caste has a wide range and easily incorporates races as well(for eg: mongoloid communities across the assam corridor).

Caste means a community that has its own food varieties, language, social/religious customs, music and arts etc. Endogamy is a good indicator of identifying the particular castes borders.

Caste causes internal conflicts among its sub-castes. Caste also acts as an important line of defence against other castes. Once a caste starts discounting the practice of endogamy, it becomes vulnerable. If more girls from a sub-caste prefer to marry boys from another sub-caste, there will be conflict. Some hindu castes in coastal maharashtra converted to christianity because boys from other marathi hindu castes(from inland maharashtra) were chasing the coastal girls. The conversion erected a defensive barrier/border which made casual intermingling difficult.

The Punjabi castes have undergone much worse than endogamy. Half of its population surrendered under occupation and switched sides(from Indian civilisation to Arab civilization). The so-called "Punjabi's" across the border pray to an Arab god, have Arab names, celebrate Arab festivals etc etc. Many Punjabi's on the Indian side of the border have still not understood or come to terms with the concept of a civilization. The idea that a caste can switch civilizational allegiance is an alien concept to them. As it is for the bangali castes in west bengal. A second civil war within these territories is not a remote possibility.

[Vips]

Ordinarily MB would be extremely wary about agreeing to such an alliance because although useful in the short term, Owaisi will only eat into her own Muslim votebank in the long term and lead to her doom. But MB may not be able to see past the immediate BJP threat and will be under pressure to deny them any possibility of victory so might go along with this.

Media dalals in the meantime will be begging for her to agree (and asking to Congress to join as well no doubt) hoping to get off on seeing the BJP lose. All the while peddling the shameless lie that AIMIM, a party of Muslims and for Muslims is somehow a "secular" party

the muslim votes in bengal are sharply divided between the urdu speaking and the bengali speaking voters.

owasi and mumtaz begum appeal to different vote banks and votes from the urdu may not so easily transfer to the bengali or even vice versa.

owasi is after the bengali muslims over whom mumtaz has the monopoly. urdu muslims in bengal are relatively much smaller in numbers.

It's a trap that the commies/congis/naxals are laying out for mumtaz using owasi as the trojan.

BH election results count for zilch in WB because those votes were from urdu muslims

but owasi is both a separatist as well as muslim supremacist.

Need to observe him carefully, especially in sensitive border states.

and given the historic ties of old between nizams and turkis, one suspects that he may be funded by the turkis

In a four cornered contest any votes that Owaisi takes away from Mamta, Congress and Commies will be an advantage to BJP.

[Suraj]

That has a lot to do with the fact that there was no internal cohesion or pride in terms of actually being a power through several admins. Coalition Govts or as under UPA, when the GOI in power endorses those who believe in and push Spivaks million mutinies and believe India is best divided (re: Thapar) - what talk then of being a united country which will chart its own way. We are lucky we had people like PVNR and ABV and now Modi who emerge periodically and reset the ship. Otherwise we'd be sunk if another MMS type had continued. When one sees the worthies from his admin who set policy and their views on India's role in the world, China etc one can only wonder how the heck did we even muddle our way through.

Maybe, but the past is the past. If we want a particular future, we need to follow the current administrations aspirations and as a forum we need to stop dwelling on the past and articulate behavior that corresponds to the future.

[Cyrano]

we need to stop dwelling on the past and articulate behavior that corresponds to the future.

Well said Karan ji.

[chetak]

meanwhile, back at the ranch..........

the paki cowboys just got shafted by imran ahmed khan niazi

so now imran ahmed khan niazi may be back to once again hustling for cheeni maal.


France refuses to upgrade Pakistan’s Mirage fighter jets, submarines, in retaliation to Imran Khan’s diatribes against President Macron

France refuses to upgrade Pakistan’s Mirage fighter jets, submarines, in retaliation to Imran Khan’s diatribes against President Macron



The decision by Paris to not upgrade the Mirage III and Mirage 5 fighter jets could bear a huge impact on the Pakistani Air Force which has about 150 Mirage fighter aircraft manufactured by the French organisation Dassault Aviation

20 November, 2020
OpIndia Staff


With the relationship between France and Pakistan taking a nosedive following Imran Khan’s verbal attack against the French President Emmanuel Macron for taking action against radical separatist Islamists, France has decided against upgrading Pakistan’s fleet of Mirage fighter jets, air defence systems and the Agosta 90B class submarines.

According to a report published in Hindustan Times, France has also reportedly asked Qatar to not allow Pakistani-origin personnel to work on the fighter jets, fearing that they will leak the technical details of the aircraft. Qatar is another country besides India which owns French-made Rafale jets.

The decision by Paris to not upgrade the Mirage III and Mirage 5 fighter jets could bear a huge impact on the Pakistani Air Force which has about 150 Mirage fighter aircraft manufactured by the French organisation Dassault Aviation. However, only half of them are serviceable. As per diplomats in New Delhi and Paris, Pakistan had requested France for upgrades to keep fighter jets in the air. However, the request was declined, one of the diplomats said.

Another request from Pakistan to upgrade its Agosta 90B class submarines with air-independent propulsion (AIP) systems that would allow them to stay underwater for a longer duration has also been turned down by France. Pakistan has three Agosta 90B submarines: Khalid, Saad and Hamza.

Earlier this month, France took a stern decision of revoking the visitor visas of 183 Pakistani nationals, including kins of Lt Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha, the erstwhile chief of Pakistan’s intelligence agency ISI. Besides, France had also forcibly deported 118 Pakistanis.

France is not the only one who had come down hard against Pakistan. Earlier, German Chancellor Angel Merkel had passed up a similar request for supply of the AIP system to upgrade submarine in Pakistan’s inventory because of its role in promoting terror, most notably in Islamabad’s failure in cooperating with Germany in identifying the perpetrators of the truck bomb attack on the Germany Embassy in Kabul in May 2017.

Pakistan tangles with France over President Macron’s strident criticism of radical Islam

The retributory action taken against Pakistan is believed to be grounded in Pakistan PM Imran Khan’s vigorous criticism of French President Emmanuel Macron over the latter’s comments on radical Islam in the wake of the gruesome killing of a teacher in the Parisian suburb.

Samuel Paty, a teacher in a school in Paris, was brutally beheaded by an Islamist for reproducing the Charlie Hebdo published Prophet Muhammad’s caricatures in his classroom. Days after his death, Macron paid a tribute to the deceased teacher, claiming that Paty epitomised the French secularism and Freedom of Speech which they would continue to uphold.

Macron spoke against the extremism bred by the radical Islam and stressed the need for developing an “Islam of Enlightenment”. Simultaneously, French authorities initiated crackdown against certain mosques and deported individuals they deemed were involved in extremist activities in France.

Macron also defended the right to caricature, stating, “right to caricature is an essential part of being French”.

Macron’s remark critiquing radical Islam had stirred a furore in Muslim countries, whose leaders wasted no time in launching an attack against the French President. Turkish authoritarian ruler Recep Erdogan questioned Macron’s mental fitness. Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad posted a long series of tweets rationalising the killing of Paty over blasphemy.

Imran Khan trained guns against Macron for his defence of caricatures of Prophet Muhammad
Pakistani PM Imran Khan too justified the beheading of Samuel Paty during his address at UNGA. In a video statement at UNGA, he tried to justify what has happened in France and said, “The Prophet lives in our hearts. When he is ridiculed, when he is insulted, it hurts… We human beings understand one thing: The pain of the heart is far, far, far more hurtful than physical pain. And that’s why the Muslims react to this.”

In a tweet later, he said, “Hallmark of a leader is he unites human beings, as Mandela did, rather than dividing them. This is a time when Pres Macron could have put healing touch & denied space to extremists rather than creating further polarisation & marginalisation that inevitably leads to radicalisation.”

However, Khan did not stop just there. In a bid to appear as the leading light of the Muslim Ummah, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan intensified his attack against the Western countries, especially against France, by releasing a statement wherein he issued a clarion call to the Muslim leaders in the world to take note of the “growing Islamophobia” in the non-Muslim states.

[Cyrano]

Good work Monsieur Macron ! Vive la France !!

[Karan M]

That has a lot to do with the fact that there was no internal cohesion or pride in terms of actually being a power through several admins. Coalition Govts or as under UPA, when the GOI in power endorses those who believe in and push Spivaks million mutinies and believe India is best divided (re: Thapar) - what talk then of being a united country which will chart its own way. We are lucky we had people like PVNR and ABV and now Modi who emerge periodically and reset the ship. Otherwise we'd be sunk if another MMS type had continued. When one sees the worthies from his admin who set policy and their views on India's role in the world, China etc one can only wonder how the heck did we even muddle our way through.

Maybe, but the past is the past. If we want a particular future, we need to follow the current administrations aspirations and as a forum we need to stop dwelling on the past and articulate behavior that corresponds to the future.

The current administration is a continuum- it has not undertaken any disruptive actions wrt the bureaucracy yet to the point that long entrenched attitudes will radically change. There is a reason for that. The entrenched system would rebel and cause more problems. So an attempt has been made to gradually bring on changes but that has had issues.

We saw Modi make a pointed comment to the bureaucracy that they had "wasted" his first five years and he wouldn't let it repeat. Hence its vital we keep monitoring what happened in the past to ensure the current administration is not sabotaged by those who actually don't believe in their actions. Many elements actually believe a "dhimmi" N-vian idea of India which constantly turns its other cheek, naval gazes and constantly preaches about its own poverty while seeking to be non aligned and abjures real politik as unethical, is the natural state of Indian civilization and what we should aim for. Hardly a week goes past without some worthy trying to push that agenda. It needs to be constantly challenged and countered. Who is pushing this agenda and who benefits are important things to track. Cuo Bono after all. It is rare that these events are not connected to funding from elsewhere. The Mitrokhin archives pointed out how badly Indian polity was subverted at one time. These events are coordinated. The Delhi riots were an example of how even ISIS was involved in provoking violence in India but ar the same time Islamists across the world suddenly stepped up their coordinated attack to call the riots a pogrom. The same tone and tenor of reportage was adopted by everyone from the Economist to the NYT. Who started and funded this coordinated campaign, why did we flub up our response to it so badly - all questions we need to ask.

Second, if we want to see what the current guys are doing ok, we need to have a baseline to compare to. Many folks don't seem to get how bad things were under UPA. That data needs to be collated and discussed as it rarely trickles out despite the omerta that exists between the bureaucracy and prior admins, lest we assume things haven't changed at all. From the attempted Siachen walk-over to inaction during 26/11, the failures of prior dispensation were huge and will fade into memory for the newer generation of voters who were children when all these events occurred and hence they neither know nor care what happened. All this needs to be documented and catalogued. Its incredible to me that people have attempted to pass off the whimsy that was Indian strategic development and foreign affairs under the la famiglia as some long term vision for development. The nature of the arrangement, the cosy you scratch my back, I scratch yours setup which ensured Indian organizations were subverted, should never be allowed to repeat at the cost of Indian interests. Jaishankar himself alludes to the failures of Indian strategic thinking in his recent book. Also the current GOI needs to protect those who support it from retributory action from its own bureaucratic structure. Otherwise the story will remain lopsided. The BJP is oft perceived as having won power but not being in power. This feedback needs to be articulated but in a sober fashion. Not angry tweets or Facebook posts.

We also need to ask hard questions as to why more is not being done and provided pointed, helpful suggestions that can address existing gaps. For instance, how much of India's current negative imagery regarding its social indices, its assumed ill-treatment of women as a national pastime (as versus actual data vs so called civilized countries), a deliberate attempt to push the "slumdog" image has contributed to loss of business and trade opportunities? How can it be addressed? What are the key steps this GOI can take. All these require a constant look at data and interpretation of who did what as well to have landed us in this state of affairs.

[sanjayc]

The sindhi, the punjabi and the bengali: wouldn't these be three major Indian sub cultures and not castes.

Each of these sub cultures have their own castes and sub castes.

I prefer to categorize these cultures as "ethno-lingual castes". The word caste has a wide range and easily incorporates races as well(for eg: mongoloid communities across the assam corridor).

Caste means a community that has its own food varieties, language, social/religious customs, music and arts etc. Endogamy is a good indicator of identifying the particular castes borders.

Caste causes internal conflicts among its sub-castes. Caste also acts as an important line of defence against other castes. Once a caste starts discounting the practice of endogamy, it becomes vulnerable. If more girls from a sub-caste prefer to marry boys from another sub-caste, there will be conflict. Some hindu castes in coastal maharashtra converted to christianity because boys from other marathi hindu castes(from inland maharashtra) were chasing the coastal girls. The conversion erected a defensive barrier/border which made casual intermingling difficult.

The Punjabi castes have undergone much worse than endogamy. Half of its population surrendered under occupation and switched sides(from Indian civilisation to Arab civilization). The so-called "Punjabi's" across the border pray to an Arab god, have Arab names, celebrate Arab festivals etc etc. Many Punjabi's on the Indian side of the border have still not understood or come to terms with the concept of a civilization. The idea that a caste can switch civilizational allegiance is an alien concept to them. As it is for the bangali castes in west bengal. A second civil war within these territories is not a remote possibility.

These actually are ethnic communities which are united by shared religion (Hinduism and its offshoots) and land (India as the land of their ancestors). Wrong to use the word caste for them, as it a colonial construct derived from the Portuguese word "Casta" (meaning "lineage" in Portuguese). Caste as it exists today is a British construct of early 20th century through Lord Risley's Census.

From Wikipedia:

Sir Herbert Hope Risley KCIE CSI (4 January 1851 – 30 September 1911) was a British ethnographer and colonial administrator, a member of the Indian Civil Service who conducted extensive studies on the tribes and castes of the Bengal Presidency. He is notable for the formal application of the caste system to the entire Hindu population of British India in the 1901 census, of which he was in charge. As an exponent of scientific racism, he used the ratio of the width of a nose to its height to divide Indians into Aryan and Dravidian races, as well as seven castes.[1][2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Hope_Risley

This turd and his Voodoo science of race is responsible for creating modern caste system among Hindus. First he divided each Indian into castes (most had no idea what their caste was) and then insisted that this caste system is hierarchical (with one caste higher than the other), despite vehement opposition from Hindus who laughed on his face and told him they have never thought like that. But the "Lord" overruled them and created caste tables that are even today causing so much mischief. That colonized turd Nehru continued with Lord Risley's system as he thought of the White Man as God. A truly Hindu leader like Savarkar, if he was to become PM, would have purged Risley's caste tables out of this country on day one of Independence

[KLNMurthy]

It is amazing that people here give a free pass to a politician who openly criticized the Indian EAM and met with terrorists promising them that a future administration will be watching how India runs its own state. This is all within the last year and not in the past. I can only image if a US politician did the same for Jews and Israel what the backlash would be. They could never be elected as president or vice president.

With Israel, the current SoS is in the West Bank encouraging them. Why can't a US SoS encourage India to take back PoK? The discussion is not how Israel treats its terrorists, but for India a different standard? Come on man!

There is no free pass. It is noted and regarded with the contempt and loathing it deserves.

At the same time, there is no benefit in agonizing over Kamala Harris or Biden, tearing our shirts and pulling at our hair because they are not fulfilling some divinely-ordained duty to be nice to India. They are who they are, America is what it is, and India will have to deal with it. Thankfully, in Jaishankar we have a strong, confident and intellectually high-caliber EAM who can handle the job.

Suraj has eloquently spelled out why, time and again, India can't seem to make it work and get to the supapawa status that all jingos want for India. To put it in a far less classy way, most Indian adults are like children when it comes to matters of policy and national endeavor. And most Indian political leaders, IFS types, elected officials, talking head loudmouths all share this charming feature. They lack the mentality of proactively controlling events and India's destiny, because they aren't conditioned to have and exercise control. Instead, they, like children, feel hurt and cry that some Great Father in the Sky (coincidentally having a gora complexion) is not giving them this or that thing which they have, after all, earned by being good little boys and girls. Same thing, when something bad is done to us: how can this invisible Great Father allow that to happen, when we work hard don't do bad things, get good grades and jobs, etc.?

The mess extends to a deeper level. Many people understand what I wrote above, and use that for self-flagellation: We Indians are like this onlee, we are like children, we will never get better, this is our fate, ayyayyo. But it is not our fault. At all. There is a perfectly sensible and logical reason why we are broken in this way. It is the unexamined, unacknowledged outcome of centuries of repression and suppression at the hands of Muslims and whites. We are a stunted people, because of what we had endured and barely survived, for centuries on end. Our folly is in somehow imagining that, just because we are, more or less, physically intact as a people, the slavery didn't take its toll. We need to recognize it, accept it, resolve to grow out of it, post haste, and then actually change our attitude and behavior to suit.

I repeat again, for the nth time, Modi is a transformative phenomenon, he is the lever we need to prise ourselves out of our centuries-long doldrums. But we have to do the prising, Modi is not going to do it for us, let alone the Great Father in the Sky.

[Karan M]

Re: KLNM, Unfortunately those in India, cannot do this transformation without state support. To counter the entrenched ecosystem which has perpetuated this structure with multiple levels of mutually reinforcing support, you either need brazen state support ie from the GOI of the day which successive INC/center left Govts provided and huge amounts of funding. With the latter in short supply and mostly directed towards BJP electoral requirements, the lack of state support means the elements of the state periodically suppress any attempt to come out beyond the Nehruvian straitjacket and how it perpetuated the entire colonial issues which you referenced. To begin with, the UPSC curriculum needs to be reformed as well as where GOI recruits from. It is incredible to see how quickly the UPSC setup rapidly converts even hitherto balanced individuals to having a highly biased, leftist view of Indian society and GOI continues to recruit from institutions whose members and students including those recruited openly state their aversion to the current Govt. Almost seven years have been wasted in this regard.

[Mort Walker]

Karan M,

Which is why a BJP government at the center is needed in 2024, 2029 and 2034. A minimum of one generation (at least 25 years) is needed to remove the colonial and Nehruvian mindset. Hopefully I live to see this.

[Karan M]

I agree. Also the BJP needs to realize that being a new center-left INC is not what it was elected for and nor will it win them any favors as the next generation of voters in urban areas are increasingly being swayed by propaganda and the administration it runs is itself against it in many cases.

Merely roads, pipes, social welfare fot the less privileged alone cannot be the crux of its focus. These are low hanging fruit but decolonization of the Indian administration and bureaucracy, freeing it from the shackles of the extremely bigoted Indian left needs to be a priority. And BJP needs to be increasingly picky of those who join it. They are taking in some dross as well. Finally they need to be much more aware of the depth of expertise that exists amongst its supporters and take it into account. The reliance on NITI Aayog alone which has literally outsourced key aspects of governance to Big4 consultancies, and the haphazard redress of economy related grievances continue to be sore points for many. Indian red tape continues to be high including in several BJP states. Indian metro infra is still abysmal. The Indian economy even before the pandemic was not chugging on all cylinders. And a lot had to do with the unwillingness of many on the admin to acknowledge there were issues and fix them in a timely fashion. We need more Gadkaris, Goyals and Parrikars.

Its hard to justify all this seven years in by pointing to past admins alone. The average Indian voter has a very short term memory and even "experimentation" with other Govts can cause grave setbacks to our development trajectory.

[chetak]

From Wikipedia:

Sir Herbert Hope Risley KCIE CSI (4 January 1851 – 30 September 1911) was a British ethnographer and colonial administrator, a member of the Indian Civil Service who conducted extensive studies on the tribes and castes of the Bengal Presidency. He is notable for the formal application of the caste system to the entire Hindu population of British India in the 1901 census, of which he was in charge. As an exponent of scientific racism, he used the ratio of the width of a nose to its height to divide Indians into Aryan and Dravidian races, as well as seven castes.[1][2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Hope_Risley

so, just as we all suspected, the baboo done it

[hnair]

Chetak, a request to you and others: please don’t quote a huge post for a one liner response like the one above!

In this age of tiny phone screens as the primary reading mechanism, please have some mercy on others who have scroll through endless quotes to see..... a one-liner my thumb joints are creaking

(other admins have also stated this before)

[chetak]

Chetak, a request to you and others: please don’t quote a huge post for a one liner response like the one above!

In this age of tiny phone screens as the primary reading mechanism, please have some mercy on others who have scroll through endless quotes to see..... a one-liner my thumb joints are creaking

(other admins have also stated this before)

My mistake, saar.

i am usually mindful of this particular aspect.

[chetak]

Vinayak@vinayak_jain·12h

PM Modi rarely tweets on a terror plot foiled. Today he did. That too after a high-level meet. Two things become clear to me —

1) Clearances may have been given to strike terror pads soon and

2) A future path sketched out for severe retaliation in case an attack succeeds.

[KLNMurthy]

Re: KLNM, Unfortunately those in India, cannot do this transformation without state support. To counter the entrenched ecosystem which has perpetuated this structure with multiple levels of mutually reinforcing support, you either need brazen state support ie from the GOI of the day which successive INC/center left Govts provided and huge amounts of funding. With the latter in short supply and mostly directed towards BJP electoral requirements, the lack of state support means the elements of the state periodically suppress any attempt to come out beyond the Nehruvian straitjacket and how it perpetuated the entire colonial issues which you referenced. To begin with, the UPSC curriculum needs to be reformed as well as where GOI recruits from. It is incredible to see how quickly the UPSC setup rapidly converts even hitherto balanced individuals to having a highly biased, leftist view of Indian society and GOI continues to recruit from institutions whose members and students including those recruited openly state their aversion to the current Govt. Almost seven years have been wasted in this regard.

This is OT for this thread, so I'll keep it brief.

I don't want to downplay the practical obstacles, struggles, difficulties etc. but when I say transformation, I am talking about adjusting our own attitude and intent--laser-like focus on plotting and scheming to take and exercise control, by quantum leaps if we can, incrementally if we must. (Listen to Suraj. The man talks sense.) That doesn't require any resources beyond our own brains (mostly) and a certain audacity on our part. This is where I cite Modi as an inspiration. I have specific ideas, but they probably should be in the now-defunct burkha forum.

[KLNMurthy]

Karan M,

Which is why a BJP government at the center is needed in 2024, 2029 and 2034. A minimum of one generation (at least 25 years) is needed to remove the colonial and Nehruvian mindset. Hopefully I live to see this.

Gents, again OT, sorry but I think, while BJP is wonderful and all, it's a mistake to predicate the survival of the nation on the BJP, or for that matter any political entity that has its own limitations and constraints.

[Suraj]

We also need to ask hard questions as to why more is not being done and provided pointed, helpful suggestions that can address existing gaps. For instance, how much of India's current negative imagery regarding its social indices, its assumed ill-treatment of women as a national pastime (as versus actual data vs so called civilized countries), a deliberate attempt to push the "slumdog" image has contributed to loss of business and trade opportunities? How can it be addressed? What are the key steps this GOI can take. All these require a constant look at data and interpretation of who did what as well to have landed us in this state of affairs.

I don't see this forum behaving as it needs to in order to support such an initiative. I find the repeated reference to past history to be distracting baggage. While pithy statements about learning from the past matter to some extent, far more energy needs to focus on the present and desired future, regardless of how much the past bothers you.

Part of this is to stop wasting so much time gnashing teeth over past actions of US leaders and potential future actions. There's plenty of ways the India of today can manage them and rise to our desired station in the world with or despite them. I'd much rather our mental efforts here are focused on discussion on those lines.

As a culture we have a tendency to dwell on the past and not act our weight class. It takes a conscious effort to overcome that. That's why I'm going to ignore everything you've written about all the ills of the past . As true as they may be, they are counterproductive at least from my perspective.

[Suraj]

It is amazing that people here give a free pass to a politician who openly criticized the Indian EAM and met with terrorists promising them that a future administration will be watching how India runs its own state. This is all within the last year and not in the past. I can only image if a US politician did the same for Jews and Israel what the backlash would be. They could never be elected as president or vice president.

With Israel, the current SoS is in the West Bank encouraging them. Why can't a US SoS encourage India to take back PoK? The discussion is not how Israel treats its terrorists, but for India a different standard? Come on man!

There is no free pass. It is noted and regarded with the contempt and loathing it deserves.

At the same time, there is no benefit in agonizing over Kamala Harris or Biden, tearing our shirts and pulling at our hair because they are not fulfilling some divinely-ordained duty to be nice to India. They are who they are, America is what it is, and India will have to deal with it. Thankfully, in Jaishankar we have a strong, confident and intellectually high-caliber EAM who can handle the job.

Suraj has eloquently spelled out why, time and again, India can't seem to make it work and get to the supapawa status that all jingos want for India. To put it in a far less classy way, most Indian adults are like children when it comes to matters of policy and national endeavor. And most Indian political leaders, IFS types, elected officials, talking head loudmouths all share this charming feature. They lack the mentality of proactively controlling events and India's destiny, because they aren't conditioned to have and exercise control. Instead, they, like children, feel hurt and cry that some Great Father in the Sky (coincidentally having a gora complexion) is not giving them this or that thing which they have, after all, earned by being good little boys and girls. Same thing, when something bad is done to us: how can this invisible Great Father allow that to happen, when we work hard don't do bad things, get good grades and jobs, etc.?

The mess extends to a deeper level. Many people understand what I wrote above, and use that for self-flagellation: We Indians are like this onlee, we are like children, we will never get better, this is our fate, ayyayyo. But it is not our fault. At all. There is a perfectly sensible and logical reason why we are broken in this way. It is the unexamined, unacknowledged outcome of centuries of repression and suppression at the hands of Muslims and whites. We are a stunted people, because of what we had endured and barely survived, for centuries on end. Our folly is in somehow imagining that, just because we are, more or less, physically intact as a people, the slavery didn't take its toll. We need to recognize it, accept it, resolve to grow out of it, post haste, and then actually change our attitude and behavior to suit.

I repeat again, for the nth time, Modi is a transformative phenomenon, he is the lever we need to prise ourselves out of our centuries-long doldrums. But we have to do the prising, Modi is not going to do it for us, let alone the Great Father in the Sky.

Exactly saar! Thanks for this perspective. I'm tired of this constant emphasis on why others are behaving badly towards us, why we suck, and more. All of that may be factually true but is counterproductive, not merely because it prevents the person from thinking forward, but traps others in that same mire of Boo hoo, UPA,UPSC, Nehru, Mitrokhin, SoGa, RaGa, Lady Gaga ... all that makes my eyes glaze over. Part of this evolution is literally yourself. This forum itself and its members spend too much time struggling against their own emotional shackles. As KLNM says, figure out how to think beyond that - growing to supapawa level is driven by people progressively breaking their own ingrained throught processes.

[Ashokk]

House panel doesn’t buy Twitter’s ‘we’re just a platform’ logic

NEW DELHI: Members of the joint committee of Parliament on the data privacy bill strongly disputed social media giant Twitter's bid to distinguish itself as a "platform" rather than a "publisher" which would enable the firm to evade responsibility for content posted on its site.
At Thursday's discussions of the panel, members told Twitter representatives that there was a need for accountability for content posted by various handles and which could be transmitted and replicated several times over. Senior BJD MP Bhartruhari Mahtab, who runs a newspaper, said he had been a journalist for several years and knew he could be held to account for anything published in the newspaper.
The panel was also surprised to learn that Twitter had paid just Rs 33 lakh by way of taxes in a particular financial year. Given the firm's scale of operations in India, its expenditure would itself be a considerable amount.
The hair splitting over "platform" as against "publisher", committee sources said, was a key aspect of the panel's deliberations over social media and allied platforms. In many ways, the content is news taken from various publications and replicated without any consent of the original news generator. Then, there is other unverified content that can have serious implications for law and order or social harmony.
The deliberations held so far have convinced many panel members that policies and functioning of social media outlets leave much to be desired. At times, Twitter representatives said content would not be removed unless by court order but there was no clarity about how certain posts were removed by the firm itself.
Similarly, Twitter's policies on cooperating with law enforcement do not always reflect a consistent pattern.

[nandakumar]

The West Bengal election is almost certainly going to be a three-cornered contest. Yesterday Sitaram Yechury laid out the contours of such a contest when he said that it would be necessary to defeat TMC to be able to defeat the BJP. It is still unclear if TMC would accept the offer of a pre poll alliance that Owaisi has offered. If she can get sufficient number of seats from Owaisi in the border districts where muslims dominate, she might accept it. Else it would be a four cornered fight in the border districts. If the BJP can take effective countermeasures against political murders and general voter intimidation then it is increasingly looking like advantage, BJP.

[sudarshan]

M. Banerjee could well do something similar to the Shiv Sena (though not exactly the same thing). That might be her preferred and least risky option. I.e., pretend to contest separately, let Owaisi do his thing, and then team up with him after the polls. It might just work to sucker the Hindus again.

[Karan M]

We also need to ask hard questions as to why more is not being done and provided pointed, helpful suggestions that can address existing gaps. For instance, how much of India's current negative imagery regarding its social indices, its assumed ill-treatment of women as a national pastime (as versus actual data vs so called civilized countries), a deliberate attempt to push the "slumdog" image has contributed to loss of business and trade opportunities? How can it be addressed? What are the key steps this GOI can take. All these require a constant look at data and interpretation of who did what as well to have landed us in this state of affairs.

I don't see this forum behaving as it needs to in order to support such an initiative. I find the repeated reference to past history to be distracting baggage. While pithy statements about learning from the past matter to some extent, far more energy needs to focus on the present and desired future, regardless of how much the past bothers you.

Part of this is to stop wasting so much time gnashing teeth over past actions of US leaders and potential future actions. There's plenty of ways the India of today can manage them and rise to our desired station in the world with or despite them. I'd much rather our mental efforts here are focused on discussion on those lines.

As a culture we have a tendency to dwell on the past and not act our weight class. It takes a conscious effort to overcome that. That's why I'm going to ignore everything you've written about all the ills of the past . As true as they may be, they are counterproductive at least from my perspective.

At some point the forum needs to grow up and become more serious. Avoiding discussing the past is will only lead to building an improper case to fixing our today or the future. How does one suggest needs to be fixed unless one knows what us broken? And document it using clear sources with a focus on what could be improved.

In fact the forum needs to spend time on understanding how current institutions need to be changed or improved to support the future trajectory we aim for. Both go hand in hand. Everyone has areas of interest and can focus on that specific topic they like.

If one needs to move beyond the usual "boo hoo" /nothing can be done and look at how a glorious future awaits etc you have to actually make specific pointed policy critiques of how the system is *today* and what needs to change. Otherwise, it is all just tea shop gossip after a while.

This is Nitin Gadkari's recent outburst at ILFS. Invite everyone to take a look at it and see how pointed his critiques are. Was his discussion on the past not warranted? It was long overdue. Only by doing so can he make a move for change.


This is the OFB. We are now fixing this issue only after years of data has piled up on how the state of affairs is.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/m.timesofi ... 409208.cms

Why were we in this mess to begin with.
Who set policy? The politicians and the bureaucrats. Who have institutional memory and power. The bureaucrats. What influences them the most on their formative setup? The UPSC recruitment and their alma mater plus where their entrenched associations and how the respective departments function.

These are the hard truths that decide irrespective of who comes and goes, the implementation of laws and regulations proceed in a certain fashion. These are what actually matter to people in India today. The daily delivery of goods and services apart from policy promises and good intent and also how policy promises are actually implemented in the real world. The focus on outcomes is essential but unless the overall setup is reformed the outcomes will remain poor.

What about politicians - this is where external levers of power come from. The issue of external influence clearly still exists at the state level and even national level. While it is fashionable to dismiss RaGa and Pogo etc the fact remains significant number of Indians still vote for them and they disproportionately exercise impact. This needs to be addressed by openly stating how disastrous their reign was.

Irrespective of who comes to power tomorrow, the BJP is in power today. The significance of this cannot be overstated.
I firmly believe they have done so despite the odds.

They have to do as much as possible to remove the levers by which foreign influence - financial and others are directed towards Indian polity and state orgs. FCRA like moves for instance need to be taken forward and may not be sufficient in themselves. To make a case for this one needs to analyze how exactly were existing Indian politicos subverted? Where did the funds come from? What legal loopholes exist? Has the forum even addressed such serious topics. To be taken seriously it may well have to.

People are already becoming complacent and assuming the BJP will be in power forever. Talk of civilizational changes are being proposed without an understanding of the fact that when people don't get two meals a day, decolonization is the last thing on folks minds. The promise of that swings elections.

How does one meet these aspirations while proceeding on a growth path? These are the kind of topics that need to be discussed seriously without carping constantly on how the GOI is not doing "x" (insert members pet peeve).

Come up with actual policy decisions or proposals wherein inclusive growth is possible. Come up with actual policy decisions on reforming current institutions and governance. Build up the capability to be a force for good that can assist the current Govt.

The real shackles are these. The inability to articulate actual policy decisions and talk practical steps that can be taken. To build an understanding in any setup we need to understand where we are. For better or for worse, the current admin cannot merely uproot the current setup and proceed accordingly. So we need to understand what is pulling them back from implementing current or even tomorrow's policies and proceed accordingly.

Otherwise all our positive aspirations become an exercise in wishful thinking- we should do this or that or this is how we shape our destiny and the world etc etc, meanwhile the chaps whom we think will do all this neither agree with us and even lack the interest or expertise to do so. And the politicians who are driving them to do so can only gnash their teeth in frustration.

In short all this businesss of why foreign powers do as they do, what they say about us is a sideshow because our first priority should be to fix our own challenges which if we do, will automatically grow us to the point that their do called barbs are weak and sound like jealous carping.

Build up our capabilities to exercise deterrence, but ideally you wouldn't have to even use that because you'd have enough support in our corner even otherwise. But that develops in a pointed fashion too, after recognizing the need for it.

[Suraj]

I don't agree with the thought process that avoiding discussing the past is some solution to fixing our today or the future or is some cultural lacuna.

In fact conflict avoidance and wishful thinking go hand in hand and the forum needs to spend time on understanding how current institutions need to be changed or improved to support the future trajectory we aim for.

If one needs to move beyond boo hoo and look at how a glorious future awaits etc you have to actually make specific pointed policy critiques of how the system is *today* and what needs to change. Otherwise, it is all just tea shop gossip after a while.

I agree with your last line - in fact I prefer we primarily if not exclusively focus on discussing this perspective. I disagree with your general approach just as you state disagreement with mine.

All countries have social issues that impact their ability to aspire to or maintain great power status. The most recent aspirant is China. They have issues up the wazoo. Their younger generation are one-childs who are spoiled and have no social grounding of family. They're physically stunted particular in terms of near pervasive nearsightedness - so many young Chinese seems to need glasses. Obesity, general lack of social cohesion, a total cultural void, rampant corruption at every level. And YET, they have accomplished much. Xi could have whined 'OMG! our future generation is a bunch of fat, nearsighted, h0rny selfish brats who'll never allow me to become the next Mao' and walked away...

Similar negative cultural traits can be unearthed of all major powers.

What made them great powers though, is determining how to channel their positive energy toward gaining power status. All that your catalogue of problems tells me is that you're very good at recognizing problems. It tells me absolutely nothing about the energies that propel the nation higher, and how to channelize them, while neutralizing the cultural or institutional factors that affect it. That's why UPSC, UPA all are just a lot of noise to me. They're nothing more than a large well curated list of ways we can remain stuck as a middle tier power. Therefore useless.

What are really useful examples here are examples, islands of brilliance and capability, that succeeded despite these factors. Understanding what enabled them to do that, replicating that at scale, is what gets the nation moving forward.

It's possible to hack every cultural and institutional impediment and get past it. In such a large country as India, society itself offers many examples, starting right from the top. A guy who used to sell tea at a railway station now runs one of the world's most powerful countries. There are many more. They all understand how to hack the system and its hurdles. There's a way to systematically hack or even dismantle corruption, institutional barriers and anything else. Pretty much any such problems have been surmounted by someone before. There's nothing here that can't be overcome because we're talking of one set of human behaviors taking on another - there's no law of physics literally making it impossible.

Therefore, I'll continue to state this - I find all this cataloguing of failures to be pointless and my eyes glaze over reading it. Most of it tells me nothing new beyond an appreciation for your effort to catalogue it. But it doesn't do anything .What does help, is cataloguing those who succeeded and found ways around it, and learn what they did to accomplish it. Before the 1980s, the Chinese had no idea how to do capitalist business. But they started with small SEZs, learned what worked and didn't, carefully increased them in scale until they turned their whole country into an SEZ effectively.

Understanding how some people and institutions do well despite the system working against them, enables us to discuss how to get past the problems. That's one thing I like about this administration. It understands how to be a government, in the matters it does well at. It understands how to deliver subsidies to the poor correctly. It understands the basic needs of the poor to have access to sanitation, credit, transport, electricity, water - giving them these has generated massive political gains. There are still things it's figuring out, but they have shown an uncanny ability most of Indian governments have not - the ability to understand the nature of the problem and the direction of a solution.

So that's my view. I don't care about the long list of problems. I care about understanding how the examples that got around these problems accomplished this, and what lessons can be taken from it to apply in any perspective. This to me is a case of differentiating ones ability to state the problem in a rote learning sense vs thinking through what enabled successful people and institutions to do that.

[Karan M]

You missed my point again.

What I am stating is you do both together. To push for change you have to figure out what is broken. What caused it to be broken. And then match that to where you want it to be.

There are people who are good at B but completely ignore A. This is magical thinking. We need to do x to grow. Where does the x come from? Where are the resources? What can be done within the constraints of the current system if x is not there? What was done in the past which failed so you don't repeat the same again? Who implements your x? Can it even be done? As Gadkari says in his video - what business do we have to claim we can do this x in y years when you chaps couldn't even do the basics? Somebody had to say it to force the change.

He had to say this seven years after the Govt changed. Imagine if he had the data in hand on how ILFS had performed when he first took power and a comprehensive critique of what could be fixed and what couldn't be?

Were such studies even done for any GOI arm? Does data even exist on all of them?

Otherwise there is no incentive for change. We are growing at x%. We showed the darn xxx what is what. All is well. And yet some country has an election and everyone is worried on how that country can influence us. Doubt a single Russian forum is discussing Trump vs Biden the way we are.

Otherwise this is the famous "we have a plan" setup with planning commissions, slides and what not. The execution part fails entirely or is sabotaged.

Much like what we saw in demonetization where the PMs political capital had to be expended because the administration was a mess in pulling things off. From the current CV crisis where the benefits of the lockdown purchased at the cost of economic disruption by the GOI were wasted by multiple state Govts who didn't use the time to plan for a surge pòst the lockdown.

In fact this is the very point. I am speaking of building the consensus for change.

But it doesn't do anything .What does help, is cataloguing those who succeeded and found ways around it, and learn what they did to accomplish it. Before the 1980s, the Chinese had no idea how to do capitalist business. But they started with small SEZs, learned what worked and didn't, carefully increased them in scale until they turned their whole country into an SEZ effectively.

Folks don't understand to get to B you need to reform A. Those who implement these policies or even set them.

And A will not reform or growth hack because they don't see a need for change as there is no institutional learning or documentation that is used to push for a change. And the suggestions are all but unworkable in the Indian context.

One needs to come out with a clear articulation of where we *failed* and *why* so one can fix where we need to be to ensure we can implement what we need to today.

Islands of excellence have long existed in India but those islands remain islands because the entrenched ecosystem ensures the wider setup remains insulated and continues as is.

Both a focus on growth and how to achieve that growth need to go together. There is incredible complacency and arrogance in every bureaucratic and governance setup which ignores the need for change.

Why are we running for emergency purchases at inflated prices during every conflict? Because the powers that be in the MOD were oblivious to reporting and documenting how badly they flubbed up procurement. Who pays the price if we lose a war? The Indian state, soldiers and the GOI of the day. Why was this not the cause for outrage to the point the GOI could use it and drive change?

"Govts come and go, we remain". To drive them to change one needs to point out what needs fixing and it needs to be in such a manner that can be implemented. Actual policy, and decisions.

[Cain Marko]

The problem in India from my perspective is that as a people, we have become personality worshippers - be it Modi, Gandhi or Rajnikanth. It would be better to be "principles' worshippers. Tattva-nishtha is crucial. Waiting for the next avatar is a long term game. in the meanwhile, it would help to clean up the mess, best we can.

First principle - Fix the inner enemy - bureaucracy and existing institutions.
Second principle - Do unto the enemy before the enemy does unto you.

I think in the current GOI - we are trying on number 2, but the process is not comprehensive. While we are successful in the physical space, the social and virtual space is uncontested. First principlewise, Modi sarkar is hardpressed and doesn't seem to have the killer instinct needed to take the enemy to the cleaners.

[Suraj]

You missed my point again.

What I am stating is you do both together. To push for change you have to figure out what is broken. What caused it to be broken. And then match that to where you want it to be.

Maybe, but I fundamentally don't think you are doing that, or at least I see nothing productive in your approach.

On the other hand, I see that this administration has a mixed bag of successes and failures. What I like is that the successes are mostly not serendipitous accidents, and the failures are something they've frequently shown the ability to iterate upon until they hit a winning formula. For example, being bestowed a strong economy when you start out is an accident. UPA1 inherited one. Dismantling a broken system or building something from scratch (JAM/toilet/JJM...) is not an accident - it demonstrates a learned intellect. Similarly, Make In India didn't quite do much, but they kept iterating until they hit the PLI scheme that's triggered a wave of new FDI and production commitments. It takes effort to craft policy , understand what's stopping it working well, and fix it. I understand and appreciate the effort that's being taken.

I don't value 'understanding the problem' - that to me sounds like sociology - understanding people. I value case studies of understanding how problems were tackled. If one cannot explain ways to work around a problem, one fundamentally has not understood the problem . Therefore explanations of the problem don't really do much for me.

[Karan M]

You missed my point again.

What I am stating is you do both together. To push for change you have to figure out what is broken. What caused it to be broken. And then match that to where you want it to be.

Maybe, but I fundamentally don't think you are doing that, or at least I see nothing productive in your approach.

I have already stated my point - repeatedly in fact as to why one has to do both together. Beyond that I don't know what else to say. India has to go ahead with its current setup, ergo acknowledging its issues and reforming it is essential. To this point, just setting high level goals and being positive by themselves won't achieve much.

Which boils down to how why we cant hope to do x without even seeing how x can be achieved based on a dispassionate reading of what's presenting the GOI from achieving its immediate goals.

And why this effort needs to be made in the first place. The last also tempers expectations from those who mock the current GOI for not waving a wand and solving all issues. See how far you've come from "then" and "then" needs to be documented, articulated, making a case for things to change further as well. It also overcomes the deficit of historical memory.

People who saw 26/11 first hand need to document the utter disaster it was, bar NSGs intervention, to show how despite all the cribbing what a change the coordinated response to Pathankot was. The serious analysts need to point out what didn't change between the two either - to drive the case for further change. The fact we could have gone to war but the MoD had still not fixed the war making capacity or capability sufficiently, and what can be done in the short/medium/long term.

All proposals for change have to begin with a problem statement and also include an implementation proposal with real world constraints, capacity.

The Indian state has constraints and without fixing those constraints even the most ambitious programs and PPTs go nowhere fast. The countries which actually advance are those which work within their limitations and fix their weaknesses double quick.

When Russia was worried about US sanctions they first took hard measures to prevent external influence in their internal system and also devised sanction busting measures to ringfence both critical military hardware and economic sanctions.

Irrespective of whether which US president comes or goes, they have these measures in place.

That began with a hard nosed acceptance of the fact they had a problem. Civil society subversion and also the penetration of their state and economic apparatus via foreign levers of power. They saw that problem. And then figured out how to address the same.

On the other hand, I see that this administration has a mixed bag of successes and failures. What I like is that the successes are mostly not serendipitous accidents, and the failures are something they've frequently shown the ability to iterate upon until they hit a winning formula. For example, being bestowed a strong economy when you start out is an accident. UPA1 inherited one. Dismantling a broken system or building something from scratch (JAM/toilet/JJM...) is not an accident - it demonstrates a learned intellect. Similarly, Make In India didn't quite do much, but they kept iterating until they hit the PLI scheme that's triggered a wave of new FDI and production commitments. It takes effort to craft policy , understand what's stopping it working well, and fix it. I understand and appreciate the effort that's being taken.

The issue is not whether this administration is successful or not. Compared to most of India's prior GOIs they are streets ahead. The issue is whether they can even hit 100% with the kind of setup they have inherited, whether they are getting the right input from existing organizations which are resistant to change and what can be done to assist them beyond a pat on the back or merely electoral supporting them.

The institutions they rely on need to be fixed. And that's completely obvious when you see someone like Gadkari, who has performed despite the constraints, express his open frustration. He is merely articulating what many of his peers likely feel and Modi himself has openly stated.

I don't value 'understanding the problem' - that to me sounds like sociology - understanding people. I value case studies of understanding how problems were tackled. If one cannot explain ways to work around a problem, one fundamentally has not understood the problem . Therefore explanations of the problem don't really do much for me.

I don't even know what to say to this because clearly if one doesn't even wish to acknowledge a problem exists in the first place there will be no answers sought and second, many of India's problems are unique to it.

There are often no "case studies" to solve our specific issues since other countries did not inherit our processes and nor do they face our political issues in replacing existing processes and institutions.

There are people though who would solve the issues if they were aligned to recognizing an issue exists. And to do that you need to articulate how the current setup has not been optimal.

Why would anyone change if everything was already ok? In the Indian setup people delay files to the day of their retirement. People have actually seen this occur. Others leak information to sabotage procurement and this is not considered an issue until war is on the doorstep and we are short of kit.

Anyways this GOI is clearly making some moves on the lines of what I have pointed out. The next step should be to fix the setup and reform the induction process itself.

Modi govt is shaking the foundation of India’s IAS-led civil service — one reform at a time

https://www.google.com/amp/s/theprint.i ... at-a-time/

The challenges can be seen in this one quote.

The phrase “committed bureaucracy” was coined by Indira Gandhi, but comes up often in conversations among civil servants nowadays. “Even before this government came to power for the second time, we were told to start planning for its second term,” said a senior IAS officer. “While at one level, it suggested that this government is thinking long-term, but on another, it felt as though we are expected to blindly be committed to their agenda even before they form the government.”

"Blindly be committed to their agenda" - as if in the pvt sector people stop working on managements directives merely because the CEO may change. If we need to change, so do those who often set policy and implement it.

[KLNMurthy]

I actually think Roopa's only fault was that she went on and on. It was quite silly. She should have just disengaged. However, one cannot compare her to the likes of the murderous Munger and malicious and murderous Mumbai fellows. She is a decent one.
This Truindology person, however well read also needs to know where to draw the line and where to respectfully disagree. Too much of this arrogance defeats discussion. You need to bring people over to your side. Humiliating people, communities and such is no way.
The so called RW on twitter scores too many self goals.

He and others like him are serving a useful purpose by exposing the institutional rottenness and corruption of IAS, IPS etc. who generally have very low professional standards but are well supplied with what Shakespeare called “the official’s contumely.”

Their time is up.

[Karan M]

Karan M,

Which is why a BJP government at the center is needed in 2024, 2029 and 2034. A minimum of one generation (at least 25 years) is needed to remove the colonial and Nehruvian mindset. Hopefully I live to see this.

Gents, again OT, sorry but I think, while BJP is wonderful and all, it's a mistake to predicate the survival of the nation on the BJP, or for that matter any political entity that has its own limitations and constraints.

Right now it is TINA. I invite you to build a list of all the political parties in India and draw up a list of what their views on Indian natsec, economy or whatever your hot button issues are and then also see who their leadership is and their track record thereof. Even if one is a real centrist, the other options are no longer what they once were.

For all the paeans this forum engages in about the Indian voter, I invite everyone to look at the recent Bihar elections, and who came in second with a hefty number of votes and seats and that should in itself, make anyone realize the gravity of the situation.

Cultural organizations etc are important but they simply don't have the heft to operate independently outside of political power. If you wish India to have a good economy, a robust military etc political power is essential to set and control policy.

Individual awareness in the Indian setup is highly limited without organizational support or state support. One only needs to see the manner in which Arnab was hounded to see the lessons that would be learnt by the average citizen whenever he seeks to articulate his views fearlessly.

[KLNMurthy]

Fanne Sir I dont claim greatness in any field, there is so much to learn. TI is great no doubt, but they way he conducts himself on Twitter is not conducive to hindu reawakening efforts. Of course, he has done a lot more than I have done in this field, my only grouse is he gets into needless arguments, he should leave this to his loyal band of followers and focus on producing relevant content. The guy/gal is probably young and with age will mature but gettin 100k followers and then getting suspended repeatedly is not helping his or our case either. We need him to stand strong and stay stable and leave the street fights to numerous other anonymous handles. Hope he gets better on this count.

Aren’t you making the perfect the enemy of the good? Other posters have pointed out why the IPS officer is 100% in the wrong.

Please don’t be like the stereotypical old Hindu uncle who goes around saying sententiously, after the family daughter is molested, “what that fellow did is wrong okay, but our girl should also learn to be in her limits onlee, no?” Just to be saying something.

Such talk is nothing but a variant of good old equal-equal. Why would you ever engage in it?

[Cyrano]

Despite its strong mandate, Modi & Govt does not have the power to break totally with the past, consider the present as tabula rasa and invent the future. That would be ill advised as well. India is not communist China to do a cultural revolution especially when people are increasingly sensitised about their past.

What I see Modi is trying to do is to break the chain of incentives that enable/compel many sections of the society and administration to act in self preservation and enable their power structures to endure. The farm sector reforms, direct money transfers, abrogation of Art370 & 35A, FCRA act etc. are examples of this. Future reforms must not only include IAS system, but also IPC and how the Police functions, CBI, Judiciary, Prisons, Propery registration, exploitation of natural resources like ground water, mining, sand, etc. The list is very long.

There will be two major types of reaction to this from vested interests. 1. Resist the dismantling by all means including collusion with BIF & external forces 2. Go low profile to weather the change and survive, only to re-emerge later when it becomes possible. The third minor(ity) reaction will be to understand this change and become part of it and drive it fwd.

Even if such reforms are pushed through (not easy), and implemented in letter and spirit (not easy at all), if the basic mind set of the people themselves does not change significantly, then sooner or later, self-serving systems of incentives and alternate power structures will re-emerge, adapt new forms and will regain control once again, manned by the surviving elements of the old guard or taken over by new opportunists. (Yadha yahdha hi dharmasya...)

For an enduring transformation of India, Governance & Administration reforms being implemented by Modi Govt are but a new opportunity to build better structures. Their enduring success depends on the people who will be part of running them differently and the people who will be served by them demanding and supporting them to run differently. That is our responsibility as 130 crore citizen to transform ourselves and be reborn (...Tad Aatmaanam srujamyaham)

[Karan M]

Great post Cyrano.

What I see Modi is trying to do is to break the chain of incentives that enable/compel many sections of the society and administration to act in self preservation and enable their power structures to endure. The farm sector reforms, direct money transfers, abrogation of Art370 & 35A, FCRA act etc. are examples of this. Future reforms must not only include IAS system, but also IPC and how the Police functions, CBI, Judiciary, Prisons, Propery registration, exploitation of natural resources like ground water, mining, sand, etc. The list is very long.

Completely agree.

There will be two major types of reaction to this from vested interests. 1. Resist the dismantling by all means including collusion with BIF & external forces 2. Go low profile to weather the change and survive, only to re-emerge later when it becomes possible. The third minor(ity) reaction will be to understand this change and become part of it and drive it fwd.

This is exactly why awareness of who did what and when is so important. It constantly amazes me to see how the very folks who literally colluded with BIF or implemented the worst policies now offer poison pill advice to the current GOI and seek to sway public opinion via opeds and policy papers or academic articles/books etc.

The worst part is many people get conned by it as well. As they say repeat a lie a thousand times.

Almost 50% of the Indian population is now at 25 years of age or below. They never experienced the Punjab terror, 1984, 2001, September 11 or the license Raj or any of the seminal events which made the rest of us realize how things have improved when we see today's situation vis a vis earlier and the long way we have to go either.

We need to ensure they aren't misled either.

Their enduring success depends on the people who will be part of running them differently and the people who will be served by them demanding and supporting them to run differently. That is our responsibility as 130 crore citizen to transform ourselves and be reborn (...Tad Aatmaanam srujamyaham)

Absolutely.

[Cyrano]

To continue on this thought, where Modi Govt can do a lot better is to communicate a lot more and constantly to every nook and corner of the country, especially to the younger generations.

Previous govts, as defunct and corrupt they were, used to take out double spread full page ads in newspapers and tom tom what they were doing to keep the people in slumber. In fact we need look no further than our own "Garibi Hatao" slogan's effectiveness despite how hollow it actually was, reinforced the "maai baap sarkar" mindset and helped the Gandhi dynasty for decades. The left is also usually very good at this and Modi can take a leaf or two from that book.

"Sab ka Saath, Sab ka Vikaas, Sab ka Vishwaas" great as it is, is not enough. Just like China distils its policy philosophy into a few bullet points however rotten they might be, and messages them very effectively, we need the crystallisation of the Modi approach into a few understandable and repeatable phrases that can be hammered until most people, especially the youth "get it". These phrases will act like compass needles when people make decisions all the time like "should I pay the bribe being demanded?", "should I highlight this administrative dysfunctioning?", "should I blow the whistle on this corrupt practice?", "should I make this constructive suggestion?", "should I join Govt service/Armed Forces?" etc etc...

The Information & Broadcasting Ministry or whoever else suitable for communication, can and must do a lot more, besides some hasty reaction to this twitter or that facebook act. If Govt mouthpieces and all other like minded organisations can amplify and relay the core principles of a Naya Bharat. We need "Mann ki Baat" x 1000, to be heard above the din of vested interests. This communication abhiyaan plus social sciences & humanities curriculum and course content rewrite are essential to achieve this mindset transformation.

[Karan M]

This communication abhiyaan plus social sciences & humanities curriculum and course content rewrite are essential to achieve this mindset transformation.

Agree again - this is essential. I don't know how many people tracked this, but IIMs are also ramping up humanities. Without fixing the humanities as they are currently taught (bigoted activism) we are merely expanding the very pool of opponents the GOI will face.

The way to do the comm abhiyaan is social media + focus groups, beyond newspaper ads (newspaper ads will be used as evidence the Govt wastes public money. Every little step is scrutinized.)

We have to have an effective feedback mechanism to the GOI as well, from the perspective of folks on the ground, especially the business/entrepreneur class who still complain about red-tape and obtrusive bureaucracy, plus the average citizen who sees and observes corruption or malfeasance at the state level but has no redressal mechanism.

We also need the GOI to work towards creating an ecosystem, where its supporters can speak fearlessly.

We are in a bizarre situation wherein despite being in power, the current GOI can be cursed day in and night out, openly and to international acclaim, whereas those who support it are often looking over their own shoulders whether they will be targeted by the state, apart from the Govts political rivals.

[Karan M]

Guys - I understand you are refuting SuryaG's point, but why make it personal? Please don't do this.

What SuryaG is saying about TI has a logic to it. Many in social media who are otherwise receptive to his points, refuse to engage with him because of how abrasive the responses often are. While that is all well and good for the "persona" he/she has adopted (defiance vs authority figures is a proven tactic for wider reach and to make messages go viral faster), it has its severe limitations in influencing change elsewhere and actually may end up doing the reverse, because the team that follows him officially/unofficially is many times more abrasive. Plus that automatically triggers the platform's algorithms even above and beyond what someone reporting him may or may not achieve.

[Cyrano]

The way to do that is social media beyond newspaper ads which will be used as evidence the Modi Govt wastes public money. Every little step is scrutinized.

Why show more restraint in doing Dharma Kaarya when faced with Adharmis who are running amok?!!
Does the Modi Govt with such a strong and popular mandate, track record of being corruption free, undisputed Bharat First credentials, and in power currently, need to be so defensive ? Dogs will bark no matter what you do.

As an example, with hindsight, should AS have dismantled Shaheen Baag protests very quickly and got accused of high handedness, intolerance, Hindu agenda, islamophobia and what not instead of showing patience which was exploited to unleash riots, loss of life, property, social harmony, image and prove to the BIF that this model can work ? Despite incredible restraint shown during protests, they got accused of all these in India and abroad no?

Perhaps the need for restraint comes from the feeling the Govt has, that it is currently unable to effectively counter the BIF narrative, across media. I'm not fully clear about which media channels are best, for which audience etc. But before that cart, we need to put the horse, which is lets say "Mool Sutras of Naya Bharat". They need to be crystallised and vetted first. Dunno if even RSS think tanks have done this in today's context.

Once this foundation is clearly established, various Govt reforms and initiatives need to be tied to them to create a framework of action deriving from the foundational thought. Such a coherent approach would be more challenging for leftist, pseudo-secular and BIF forces to target from various angles and dominate the ephemeral narrative of social media. I think what S Jaishankar has been doing on Foreign Policy should inspire similar endeavour in domestic policy.

Traditional media will still be relevant for quite some time to come. Ink fades a lot slowly than SM posts which are based on trends which themselves are mostly based on reaction to events. Both can be used, print and TV, web channels to advance the core foundational thought through articles, discourse and debates, and SM for "call to action" as events unfold on the path of progress and defeat BIF spin on the fly.

Mass Communication used to be hot jholawala domain some years ago. Not sure what this domain produces these days. May be experts on this forum can add more depth to this topic than I can.

[Thakur_B]

TI is a young guy, barely 23-24. One semi-anon twitter handle has put the entire emminent historian cabals chaddi in a vice like knot. No wonder he is widely hated and targeted.

[KLNMurthy]

Guys - I understand you are refuting SuryaG's point, but why make it personal? Please don't do this.

What SuryaG is saying about TI has a logic to it. Many in social media who are otherwise receptive to his points, refuse to engage with him because of how abrasive the responses often are. While that is all well and good for the "persona" he/she has adopted (defiance vs authority figures is a proven tactic for wider reach and to make messages go viral faster), it has its severe limitations in influencing change elsewhere and actually may end up doing the reverse, because the team that follows him officially/unofficially is many times more abrasive. Plus that automatically triggers the platform's algorithms even above and beyond what someone reporting him may or may not achieve.

Firstly, when calling out the equal-equal victim-blaming that I saw, I was wrong to address SuryaG directly and personally the way I did. I did it thoughtlessly and I apologize for that.

Now if you would indulge me a bit, I will say more on the case at hand and what it means to BRF, IMO of course.

About the young Twitter poster’s brashness and abrasiveness. Abrasiveness plays a necessary role in dislodging, exposing, and removing long-encrusted crud and filth. The IPS officer in this case may be a perfectly nice person in real life (though I bet she isn’t) but her every single action in this exchange was emblematic of a horribly perverse sense of social values, and her last action—getting a (presumably) Indian citizen shut down for, basically treating her like he would any ordinary human being—is like a loud and powerful gong that proclaims India’s continuing enslavement to Mughalai and colonial institutions. Because this was normal, not abnormal, behavior for a person having her position in India.

We should look at this with clear eyes and take the proper lessons from it. That means we should also look clearly at our own response and instinctive reaction to what we see. Why? Because this is BRF, I suppose. We are here to learn and understand, so that we can bring change which keep India going and growing. And to my mind, the only real change is one’s own personal change. And personal change is often painful and requires us go step outside our comfort zone of default thinking.

Normally, everyone’s personal change is his own business. It is not proper for others to, as you say, “get personal” with them. But again, this is BRF. Meaning what? Is it A. (mostly) an amazing shared collective endeavor in which we all help and nudge each other through the process of self-examination and change? Or is it B. (mostly) just another place where smart, well-intentioned minds visit from time to time to blow off steam?

I vote for A. In that spirit, here is the analysis I should have offered in the first place, without getting personal as I did.

I think, if we look at this case and the focus of our response is not 100% on the problem represented by the officer’s actions, then we are a part of that same problem. The discussion is not about the quality or smoothness of TrueIndology, or the best way for a young talent to reach people.It is about a case of Hindus being trodden on, with impunity, by representatives of the same institutions that have suppressed them for centuries. The very purpose of their treading on Hindus is to teach Hindus to be meek and mild, so that they will remain productive without threatening the power and position of the overlords. And, if our instinctive response as Hindus to an act of aggressive suppression is to criticize the Hindu victim for not being sufficiently meek and mild, isn’t that an enactment of the exact behavior demanded by our enslavers?