Bharat Rakshak

Pratyush wrote:Why should India care about the relations with the Khans. We need to mind our own business and deal with the Khans on a transactional basis.

ramana wrote:Shreeman, Have you read a book "How to read Literature like a Professor"? It gives pointers on the grand themes of the US.
Your comments are right on.

The number of first time MPs 315 is highest ever barring post-Emergency election in 1977 when 376 first timers had won. Also the number of re-elected MPs 171 out of 543 is one of lowest ever. Lowest number of re-elected MPs was in 6th Lok Sabha in 1977 when only 144 could win again, followed by 157 in 1980 in 7th Lok Sabha and 165 in 1989 in 9th Lok Sabha.

Lessons of the 1984 Sikh Massacre

by Simran Jeet Singh, thediplomat.com June 13th 2014


As millions around the globe continue to celebrate the election of India’s controversial new head of government, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, millions of others have been left scratching their heads, wondering how a notorious perpetrator of human rights violations could be elected to lead the world’s largest democracy.

The global community has expressed serious concern regarding what Modi’s meteoric rise means for the developing Indian nation. While he has been hailed as a savior for India’s stagnating economy, both Modi and the Hindu Nationalist party he represents – the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) – have been linked to state-organized atrocities targeting minority communities.

Modi’s state administration oversaw the 2002 anti-Muslim pogroms in Gujarat, which claimed over one thousand lives and injured thousands of others. The global community has held him accountable for this massacre, to the extent that up until his prime ministerial appointment, the U.S. government refused to grant him a visa.

Modi’s ascent to political leadership has struck a nerve with religious minorities. Communal violence has long affected minority communities in India, and this is not the first time an individual accused of the murder of Indian civilians has been slated to lead the country. This fact is especially poignant this week, as Sikhs around the globe commemorate the anniversary of the anti-Sikh massacres in June of 1984.

Thirty years ago this week, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi ordered a military assault on the historical epicenter of the Sikh religion, Darbar Sahib [Golden Temple] of Amritsar, Punjab. The Indian Army planned its attack to coincide with a day on which the Sikh community traditionally gathers at Darbar Sahib, a decision that directly resulted in thousands of civilian casualties. The Army also attacked about 40 other gurdwaras[/i] (places of Sikh gathering and worship) throughout the Indian state of Punjab on the same day.

As noted by the respected civil liberties collective, Citizens for Democracy, the Indian government imposed a media blackout and manipulated international perceptions of the massacres. The state invoked the pretense of terrorism and framed the military assault as a necessary intervention. To this day, most accounts of the violence use the Army’s sanitized codename – “Operation Bluestar.” The Sikh community, however, has remembered this event as aghallughara – [/i]a massacre of genocidal proportions intended to strike at the heart of its collective psyche.

The anti-Sikh violence of June 1984 is not the first ghallughara [/i]in Sikh history, nor is it the first assault on Darbar Sahib of Amritsar. Sikhs have long been targeted in their homeland of South Asia and consider the military assault of 30 years ago as the third such ghallughara [/i]in which the state has attempted to devastate and exterminate its own Sikh citizens. During the first Sikh Holocaust of 1746 ruling authorities offered monetary rewards for the capture and slaughter of practicing Sikhs. Less than 20 years later, the Great Holocaust of 1762 nearly wiped out the entire Sikh population.

The Sikh community has endured a long history of persecution at the hands of the state, yet Sikhs themselves do not understand oppression in the frame of victimhood. Sikh memory primarily functions to edify and inspire, and the word “victim” is not part of the Punjabi or Sikh lexicon. Rather than recalling these massacres as moments of hopelessness and despair, Sikhs remember these massacres in the spirit of chardi kala [/i](perpetual optimism).

This affirmative outlook does not take away from the seriousness with which Sikhs view and address issues of injustice. The Sikh religion expects all followers to serve humanity and to challenge injustice, and this conviction has historically positioned the community at the center of political persecution, particularly in moments when leadership enacts and engages in unjust practices.

This historical positioning seems important at the present moment. This week, as the Indian nation grapples with the appointment of a public figure tied to serious human rights violations, it also commemorates the 30th anniversary of the anti-Sikh massacres and state-sponsored assault on Darbar Sahib in Amritsar, Punjab. Memories of violence targeting minority communities in the more recent past, coupled with the emergence of a new leadership carrying a Hindu nationalist agenda in the present, leaves minority communities especially anxious about what they might expect in India’s uncertain future.

Simran Jeet Singh is currently completing his Ph.D. at Columbia University. He also serves as a Security Fellow for the Truman National Security Project, the Senior Religion Fellow for the Sikh Coalition, and the Scott and Rachel F. McDermott Fellow for the American Institute of Indian Studies.

By reexamining Modi’s history and the elections through a racial lens, it is clear that numerous barriers exist to revolutionizing India’s rich and unparalleled diversity. Although there are 177 million Muslims in India, of the 282 lawmakers in Modi’s BJP, zero are Muslim. Only 9% of Muslims, 8% of Christians, and slightly more Sikhs voted for the BJP. If the Modi era initiates by continuing the systematic push of ethnic minorities to the political periphery, there is no doubt violence will continue to stain India’s future.As head of state of a secular democracy, Modi will only be able to bring a new and just narrative to India’s history if he is able to reconcile these complex ethnic and religious constructs. In his acceptance speech, he passionately claimed “Celebration will continue, but this marks the beginning of the era of responsibility.” If Modi emphasizes issue-focused rather than identity-focused policies, he can set the stage for a type of responsibility blind of religion or caste. His actions will be closely watched not only by the international community, but also by a captivated 1.2 billion population that is fatigued by corruption, ravenous for palpable change, and restless to see India on the center stage.

NEW DELHI — Of all the pictorial charts used in Indian schools as teaching aids, it was the Ideal Boy that haunted my generation. The Ideal Boy woke up and brushed his teeth with care, saluted his parents, prayed, had his meals on time, helped others, performed sundry duties and, more puzzling, took “lost children to police post.”The Ideal Boy embodied certain Indian values, and though these seemed innocuous enough, there was something about his smudgy features, identifiably mainstream Hindu and North Indian, and his expression of saintly smugness that scarred my child brain. Now that I am an adult, and that the right-wing has come back to power in India, I understand why I was so queasy back then. The feeling was a foreboding that otherwise unobjectionable traditional Indian values — respect for one’s family, obedience to elders, modesty for women — might be invoked to reject or repress certain groups.
The new Bharatiya Janata Party government seems determined to look to Asia for political and cultural inspiration. Prime Minister Narendra Modi projects an image of himself as an authority — even an authoritarian — figure, in keeping with the regional ideal of a strong leader. All the while he has been careful to reach out to his counterparts. His first scheduled trips abroad will be to Bhutan and then Japan: and the Chinese foreign minister has just ended a visit to India.
His approach isn’t just a personal predilection; it also reflects a wider shift within India: the search, especially among right-wing politicians and intellectuals, for a common set of Asian cultural norms that would help them create and strengthen a new sense of Indian identity.In the 1990s, Lee Kuan Yew, the former prime minister of Singapore, triggered a fierce debate by drawing a line between Western freedoms and human rights, on the one hand, and on the other, an Asian vision of living in harmony, which might place individual rights in abeyance for the good of the community. In India, this “Asian values” debate found its way into discussions on development, among other things, notably in arguments trying to discredit environmentalists for being too heavily influenced by the West.
The problems with that position are the same now as they were then. As the economist Amartya Sen put it in 1997, “What can we take to be the values of so vast a region, with such diversity?” As a result, invoking an Indian, or Asian, identity in such a plural country, or region, often becomes an excuse for the majority to speak over many minorities.
And why assume, Mr. Sen also argued, that “Western notions” were “somehow alien to Asia”? Yet just a couple of weeks ago, a report by the Indian government’s Intelligence Bureau on the influence of NGOs was leaked to the media. One of its conclusions was that many local NGOs — some funded by “donors based in the U.S., the U.K., Germany, the Netherlands and Scandinavian countries” — had been “using people-centric issues” to stall development projects. Another was that some of their work served “as tools for the strategic foreign policy interests” of Western governments. This stiff-collared bureaucrat-speak isn’t just a peculiarity of the Intelligence Bureau: It reveals a suspicion of the West — and of a human rights culture seen to have been forged in the West — that is widespread in India, among politicians and businessmen and, indeed, many ordinary Indians.Every major case of rape recently, for example, has prompted a belligerent reaction against the victim, often couched in terms that pit India against the West. On June 7, a leading ideologue of the extreme right-wing organization Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, S. Gurumurthy, raised a minor storm of protest when he tweeted: “If Indian women westernize rapes will rise by 50/60 times to reach the levels of West, But there will be no media report No UN intervention.” Among his next few tweets was this definition of Westernization: “Unbridled individualism which destroys relations and families.”These days, the purportedly shady influence of the West is invoked not only to explain why women are victims of sexual violence, but also why Indian culture is in danger, artists should be censored or anyone who questions the costs of development is “anti-national.” In other words, the return of the Asian values debate in India has already become an excuse to assault civil and political rights.
The first time around, Mr. Sen had argued that “The so-called Asian values that are invoked to justify authoritarianism are not especially Asian in any significant sense.” This was a wise attempt to get beyond hopeless dichotomies. But it appealed to rationality, and lately rationality is a value that has seemed not Indian enough.

The post-mandate comments that ‘darkness has descended on India’ show the kind of opposition Narendra Modi has to overcome. It is this aspirational India that is attempting to throw away the shackles of Macaulayism. Make no mistake, it is a tectonic shift and a beginning of the end of the Macaulayan mindset that has ‘ruled’ India for close to 60 years, says Colonel (retd) Anil Athale.

When Modi, on reaching of the steps of Parliament, bowed down, he in essence asserted for the first time a very Bharatiya tradition. A tradition that is followed by the humble railway ‘gangman’ (rail track checker; observe a new group of track patrol men joining duty, they will touch the rail tracks with reverence) to even highly-paid white-collar bank employees, who also touch the steps of their work premise with reverence before entering their office.

This was no ordinary gesture/event; it was an assertion of Indian ethnicity and pride in showing his Indianness in public.

The two worldviews that were in contest, as a subtext of the just-concluded elections, were India as a State to give economic succour to its citizens versus India as a civilisational State with its own worldview, philosophy, aesthetics, music, art and culture.

The Bharatiya Janata Party inarticulately defines it as ‘cultural nationalism’ when what they mean is Indian civilisational nationalism. Partly this confusion can be attributed to the fact that in Hindi the words civilisation and culture have a common and interchangeable term -- sanskriti and sabhyata. Culture is an expression of civilisation but it is civilisation that is supreme and defines the philosophy of the people.

Historian Arnold J Toynbee had offered an explanation for the rise and fall of civilisations. He visualised civilisation as a living organism going through the cycle of birth, growth, stagnation, decline, demise and rebirth. He saw long-term history as a contest between challenge and response. Thus, when Indian civilisation faced Islamic onslaught and military defeat from the 13th century, the Indians led by Marathas under the leadership of Shivaji checked the expansion of the Mughals.

Lord Macaulay’s famous Minute on Education dated February 2, 1835, has shaped the Indian elite's perceptions for close to two centuries. The British prevailed because they had the technology of rail and telegraph combined with firearms to which the Indians had no answer.

But the British were cleverer than other imperial rulers. They ruled India through Indians. To this end they created, through a Macaulayan system of education, a class of Indians that had no pride in their culture, no confidence in their ability and were virtual mental slaves. Extracts from that famous Minute read like it was written in January 2014 and not 1835.

'That English is better worth knowing than Sanskrit or Arabic; that the natives are desirous to be taught English, and are not desirous to be taught Sanskrit or Arabic; We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern; a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect. To that class we may leave it to refine the vernacular dialects of the country.'

The two main points of that education policy were:

A total disdain for any kind of Indian knowledge/achievements in the past as ‘the entire Indian literature on any subject cannot even fill two shelves in any European library’ (paraphrased).

The English must have an education system to serve its Empire and create a class of Brown sahibs and clerks.
At the risk of oversimplification, one can summarise the salient points of Macaulayism as under:

India was a creation of the British -- they unified the several kingdoms etc. Never mind that consolidation of nation states was a 19th century phenomenon when India was already a British colony or that Germany or Italy attained political unity only in the 19th century, or that British India still had close to 400 princely states. Historical memories of vast Indian empires of the past including Chandragupta, Ashoka, Samudragupta or Vikramaditya was not history but mythology. The Indian subcontinent’s cultural unity was also a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh myth.

But for British rule India would have remained in the bullock cart age. All modern technology is the gift of the British colonialists, never mind that countries like Japan, China or even Thailand who were never colonies are today far more advanced than India.

Indians have no history to be proud of, the society was caste-ridden, backward and primitive. Indians should be ashamed of their faith and but for the intervention of the English India would have remained a disunited, backward country full of superstition. Indian intellectual achievements in mathematics, astronomy, medicine are a part of communal propaganda. Aryabhatta, Sushruta, Bhaskara never existed and there is no evidence on the ground of any Indian achievement in art or architecture.

Indian secularism/pluralism is due to the Constitution of 1947, itself a gift by the Macaulayan elite, otherwise India would have been a theocracy like Saudi Arabia or Pakistan. Never mind that in its entire history of over 5,000 years only two Indian rulers took up the task of spreading faith, Ashoka and Aurangzeb. Also ignored is the fact that Christianity had come to India's shores in 62 AD (when the Romans were feeding the Christians to lions for sport) and continues to flourish, India had Jews who were never persecuted, there were Muslim Arab trader colonies and mosques on the west coast much before Mahmud of Ghazni made his appearance.

In the second and final part, Col Athale says the fight between forces of Indian nationalism and Macaulayism aided and abetted by West is going to be long, hard and dirty. The outcome will decide whether India becomes a superpower or continues to wallow in the swamp of underdevelopment.

My first encounter with Macaulayism was in April 1975. The episode is worth a recall. It was April 21, and India had just launched its first satellite ‘Aryabhatta’ from a Russian rocket.

This author, then a junior captain posted on operational staff, was present at an army party in Rajouri (a field area and headquarters of a division in Jammu and Kashmir). All of us were gathered in the main hall with the general as chief guest. The conversation veered around that day’s news, namely the launch of the Aryabhatta satellite.

A very good friend of the author, a senior major, who headed the intelligence department, in a light-hearted manner, commented on this, “Who is this Bhatta Bhatta?” There was general laughter! I think something snapped in me and at top of my voice from the other end of the room, I told my friend (and indirectly the general and others who found this a joke worthy of laughter) that Aryabhatta was one of the world’s greatest astronomers, who had accurately predicted the various facts about planets 1,000 years before Galileo and Copernicus and if he did not know this he should just shut up.

Most of these colonial institutes produced precisely the kind of Indians that Macaulay envisaged. It is these individuals who mostly man India’s administrative machinery, judiciary and even armed forces. Modi has a long, hard and dirty battle on his hands in the future.

Returning to the ‘challenge and response’ theory of rise and fall of civilisations, one can understand the initial Nehruvian years when India and Indians absorbed Western ideas, institutions and language. But it became clear that having adapted and grown in strength, India will assert and free itself from the Macaulayism. After Nehru’s death in 1964, Lal Bahadur Shastri became the prime minister.

Shastri was steeped in Indian culture and tradition and was a true ‘rajyogi’ (an ascetic ruler). But it is a fallacy if one were to claim that his leadership was easily accepted. The author was a cadet in the National Defence Academy at the time and can vividly recall that every time he came up on the screen during a movie show (for those who don’t know, at the beginning of all movies a short ‘news reel’ produced by the Films Division was shown), the cadets would burst into laughter.

After the imposing figure of a pucca sahib like Nehru, the rustic, diminutive, dhoti-clad Shastri with a squeaky voice was indeed a figure of derision for most Macaulayans. But then came the 1965 Indo-Pak war and Shastri showed exemplary leadership in fighting the US-Pakistan combine.

If Shastri would have survived longer, Macaulayism would have been dead and buried. One recalls the kind of national spirit Shastri evoked. When India faced the American food embargo, his call to eat one less chapati got a huge response. It seemed that Indian nationalism was asserting itself. His early death cut short this attempt.

Indira Gandhi, who followed him, was no Macaulayist. But it took her some time to find her feet and by the time she did, in 1980, she became the victim of international politics that was hell-bent on dividing India. Her son who followed her won a landslide victory in the 1984 elections essentially on the plank of Indian nationalism. One of the measures he took to re-assert Indian identity was to revive the public's interest in India’s ancient past. His decision to air the Indian epics Ramayan and Mahabharat, dealt a decisive blow to Macaulayism. But his assassination cut short that attempt.

In 1999, when an avowedly ‘nationalist’ government came to power in India under Atal Bihari Vajpayee, another attempt was made to dismantle the Macaulayist legacy. Under Dr Murli Manohar Joshi, an attempt was made to re-assert Indian nationalism.

Restoring the Indian historical narrative was seen by him as the first step to national rejuvenation. It is understood that victors write history. Since the British ruled India for long, the version of history taught to Indians had a heavy bias towards their rule.

For instance, the emphasis given to narrating the deeds of various governor generals was far in excess of their long-term impact. On the other hand, ancient Indian history was given a short shrift. It is this that produced the kind of people described by the author earlier, who had no clue about Indian contribution to science or philosophy.

But Joshi's attempt was fiercely opposed by the Macaulayists, individuals as well as institutions. It was derisively called ‘saffronisation’ of history. The Vajpayee government was weak politically and had to succumb to the pressures.

After the 2004 electoral defeat of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Macaulayists under the United Progressive Alliance government struck back and virtually rolled back most of the changes that had been brought about since the 1980s. But it soon became apparent that the Macaulayists were in retreat. For despite the political changes in India and return of Macaulayists to power, the IT professionals of Indian origin as well as the Indian Diaspora was doing exceedingly well.

The success of Indians abroad and the dismal performance at home began to show up the ruling elite in bad light. It was only a matter of time before the electorate sent them packing in 2014.

India and China, two ancient Asian civilisations, followed different paths to rejuvenation. While India took up the parliamentary democracy route and Macaulayist and administrative system, China adopted Marxism, another Western philosophy, to modernise itself. As China progressed and gained confidence, it jettisoned the Marxist crutches by 1979 under Deng Xiaoping, who proclaimed the Chinese path as Marxism with Chinese characteristics. It seems that India is finally at that ‘Deng’ moment in its history where it is ready to shed the Macaulayan ideological baggage.

But there are others who sincerely and genuinely believe that a pluralistic, modern and democratic India can only survive on Macaulayan foundations. Their number is large and they do occupy important slots in administration and the media. The West understands the danger of the rise of another China-like Asian power. Witness the chorus of criticism and apprehension at the possible victory of Indian nationalists in the Western press.

The fight between the forces of Indian nationalism and Macaulayism aided and abetted by the West is going to be long, hard and dirty. The outcome of this war will decide whether India fulfills the prediction of British historian Arnold Toynbee and like China becomes a superpower or continues to wallow in the swamp of underdevelopment.

Iconization, Fractal Recursivity, and Erasure

The semiotic processes of iconization, fractal recursivity, and erasure, as discussed by
Irvine and Gal (2000), provide a solid basis for the mapping out of these ideologies.

Iconization: This process involves “the attribution of cause and immediate necessity to a
connection (between linguistic and social groups) that may only be historical, contingent, or
conventional” (p. 37). These linguistic features are then made to be (and are subsequently
interpreted as being) iconic of the identities of the speakers.

Fractal Recursivity: The notion refers to the fact that the differences which are made to be
iconic are used in the creation of an “other.” Integral to the idea of fractal recursivity is that
the same oppositions that distinguish given groups from one another on larger scales can
also be found within those groups. Operating on various levels, fractal recursivity can both
create an identity for a given group and further divide it. Within each group or subgroup,
then, there is a schismogenesis (or creation of differences), whereby speakers can be divided
further according to those same principles.

Erasure: It is the process by which these distinctions are created and maintained. Erasure is
integrally intertwined with both iconization and recursivity, as it is the erasure of any
differentiation which is, according to the given ideology, inconsequential. Ideological
outliers, then, are either discounted as being anomalous or disregarded altogether and
ignored. Erasure therefore determines what can become iconized and also what then
becomes recursive within a given group.

You should take a look at

http://www.daijiworld.com

and
http://www.mangalorean.com

These are news portals for Mangalore but the comments that each news
items carry are full of virulent anti-Modi remarks. Both the Muslim and Catholic
community is highly anti-Modi.

shiv wrote:

rsangram wrote: I had said that in all humility.
But I am happy to remove that caveat from that post. I fully stand by my post, categorically and unequivocally.

Thank you for removing the caveat that you might be wrong, and stating categorically and unequivocally that you stand by your post. Your concern for the country and its people seems to be as humble in its value and scope as that of your dolorogenic post, for which you seek archival for the next five years.

I would simply like to highlight part of your post, so it will be read and remembered. This is a "sacrifitional" choice I make on your behalf.

rsangram wrote: 3. The third thing that makes me apprehensive is the Indian people in general. When the people by an overwhelming majority are corrupt, non-nationalist and uncouth and presumably mostly voted for Modi only on the basis of them being "aspirational", not "sacrifitional", I wonder what one man alone can do, no matter how tall or how strong or how good. He has one billion crabs to pull him down.

ramana wrote:Seems they expeted Congress to come to power and continue to allow their privilieges. They feel let down at thwarted aspirations and vent on Modi.

What they don't realize is a strong and prosperous India is their best surety which only Modi can provide.

"When for 66 years various governments have not found an answer to these subsidies, I should produce an answer? Obviously, it is not possible," Jaitley told NDTV 24X7 television channel after presenting the budget.

In case you find the summary helpful for this particular book on change…

Summary of “SWITCH” by Dan Heath

• Start by Clarifying the Change: For things to change, somebody, somewhere has to start acting differently
o Who is it that needs to change?
o What is the goal?
• Direct the Rider – highly specific concrete steps.
o Script the critical moves: Ambiguity is the enemy of change. Discuss: what are the one or two critical moves that would create the most rapid change toward your goal.
o Find the Bright Spots: We are natural problem solvers, but we often fail to pay attention to what IS working. Discuss: What’s already working, with respect to your goal, and how you can do more of it.
• Motivate the Elephant - Can I make it easier?
o Shrink the Change: The elephant is daunted by big changes. Can you break it down? Discuss: how can I shrink the change to make it less daunting?
o Find the Feeling: People rarely change because of information. Our elephants are motivated by feeling. SEE, FEEL Change model. Can I motivate with visual impact to drive the need for change? Discuss: What can you show your audience that would motivate a change?
• Shape the path
o Rally the Herd: Behavior is contagious – but only if it’s visible. When social norms are in your favor, publicize them. When you’re fighting a hostile culture, create a “free space” for your innovators and advocates. Discuss: How can you rally your herd?
o Tweak the environment: A smooth path can turn jerks into saints. Shape the environment to make the right behavior a little easier, whether that means a floor plan change or a new workflow process or a clever checklist. Discuss: How can you “one click-ify” your change (like Amazon one click shopping).

ramana wrote: You cant do change overnight if you want it to stick.

Cosmo_R wrote:@ rsangram ^^^:

Did he not say somewhere that he wants 'targeted subsidies' meaning cash payments to the poorest via a revamped Aadhar scheme?

JE Menon wrote:Isn't it funny that there is no real "world" reaction... The largest election in the history of mankind has just ended, the man elected is the only one on the planet, EVER, to have received a mandate of such proportions and from such a large number of people... and yet, "world" reaction is surprisingly muted... No one writing paeans to democracy in India, no one really examining how it happened, no thoughtful after-piece in any media about what this dramatic change really means for the world, and for India, the second most populous and arguably the youngest population on the planet.

No one knows what to really make of it all. Good.

ramana wrote:Looks like a lot of pockets of alienated people in India

You should take a look at

http://www.daijiworld.com

and
http://www.mangalorean.com

These are news portals for Mangalore but the comments that each news
items carry are full of virulent anti-Modi remarks. Both the Muslim and Catholic
community is highly anti-Modi.

Seems they expeted Congress to come to power and continue to allow their privilieges. They feel let down at thwarted aspirations and vent on Modi.

What they don't realize is a strong and prosperous India is their best surety which only Modi can provide.

Both the Muslim and Catholic
community is highly anti-Modi.

In its editorial titled ‘Narendra Modi, disciple of Jesus Christ’, Sunday Shalom – a weekly publication in Malayalam for Catholic communities — tries to trace the impact of BJP’s victory in the Lok Sabha elections on Christian faith and believers in the country. “Narendra Modi has won on God’s design and with God’s consent. Anything that has God’s consent also comes with God’s plan,” Chief Editor Bro Benny Punnathara wrote.

Meanwhile, some of those who commented on the editorial’s online page have slammed the publication for its stance on Modi and alleged ‘political designs’ of the Church.

sum wrote: These guys seem to be as lost cause as most of the IMs im encountering these days.

rsangram wrote:MAYI ASK THE MODERATORS TO SECURE THIS POST, SO THAT WE CAN KEEP COMING BACK TO THIS AND REFER TO IT PERIODICALY AND CERTAINLY AT THE END OF FIVE YEARS ? - R

With all the hopes and expectations from the middle class in India, mainly educated and urban, I would like here to express a word of caution and some apprehensions on the extent to which Modi will be able to bring about revolutionary changes. If everyone recalls, Mr. Vajpayee came to office with similar expectations and optimism, just like the Janata Party government in 1979 after emergency, when Mrs. Gandhi was defeated. In fact, unlike Mr. Vajpayee, who did not even have a BJP majority, the Janata Party had close to if not actually a two thirds majority. It did not take long for that Janata Party government to disintegrate. I dont think it even completed its full term. So here are reasons why I am cautious and apprehensive.

1. I hope that Mr. Modi does not fall into the classic trap of being at a subconscious level, an "aspirer" to being a part of the English speaking St Stephens crowd. I hope he does not feel that now that he has become the PM, that he has now become their "equal" and now he will act in ways to vindicate his reputation by acting just like other politicians, particularly Congress politicians. There are several reasons why I think this may not be totally out of the realm of reality. One, once in power, not only the BJPians of Vajpayee ilk, but also supposed hardliners like Advani and his ilk, started behaving exactly like Congressis, and there was hardly anything to distinguish between the Congress governments and Vajpayee's BJP government. Same is true for most BJP ruled state governments. One can hardly distinguish them from a Congress ruled state (Gujarat being an exception, of course) The jingos here will be quick to jump up and down and claim, well, those were all "non-Modis", that Modi is different. Well, maybe and I certainly hope Modi is different. But ever since 2002, it has seemed to me like Modi has always been on the defensive himself on the Muslim issue in India and instead of doubling down and standing firm on his original anti-Islamist stance, he has instead been busy justifying himself on how he treats everyone equally and in his reign, muslims do not have to fear ( I will admit to coming from an point of view that a little bit of fear is a good thing). I personally dont think, that at least this time around, had Modi continued to explicitly maintain his hard stance against the Islamists, it would have made more than 1% difference in his vote share, if that. Almost all the people who voted for Modi this time around would have voted for him anyway, even if he had a harder stance.
The second thing that makes me think that Modi may not meet all our expectations is because he never ever brought up the issue of deliberate and systematic step by step destruction of our defense preparedness by successive Congress and other non-BJP governments. I am not sure, Modi is even aware of the dismal level of our actual defense preparedness on the ground. The last BJP government did not raise a red flag about lack of defense preparedness which was compromised by their Congress predecessors and in fact, did not do much to enhance and rebuild our defenses. Lastly, I would have expected Modi to start with a very stern stand against Paki, not invited them to his inauguration and then extract concessions from the Paki for even small favors that India would perform for them, such as talking to them at all, or serving them a meal or even acknowledging them as interlocutors. If the argument for inviting them is the opinion of the "International Community", then let me remind everyone, Mao did not care a damn for "International Opinion", and yet it was Nixon who visited China first, not Mao. Even the present day, so called "Moderate capitalist" Chinese leaders dont care a damn about the "International Community" today. Just ask the Phillipines, the Japanese, the Vietnamese and the Indians. There should have been a de-facto non recognition of Pakistan on day one of his taking office, without making it public, but by making it a silent policy within his government. He should have started off by treating Pakis as pariahs and launched a very strong diplomatic initiative in all world capitals with full multi-media presentations of the history of India, how India was invaded by Islamists, how Pakistan was formed, how Paki is a virulently Islamic nation - just a frontier arm of the larger Islamists expansionists forces and point out clearly the differences between India and Pak. This diplomatic initiative should have ended with the unmistakable conclusion that if Hong Kong is recognized by the international community as a part of China, if Taiwan is more or less regarded by the rest of the world as a renegade province of China and if Tibet of all places is recognized by most of the world as part of China, why cant Pakistan be considered a breakaway rogue province of India, a completely illegitimate entity to begin with and continues to be as proven by its acts everyday, to be reunited in the long run, "preferably by peaceful means", This attempt should have been made to gain as much leverage as possible before finally and grudgingly sitting down in talks with Paki. But again, Modi played right into Paki hands by appearing smiling and harmless. Why soften a hardline image for nothing ? It is hard enough to get an Indian of any station with a hard and ruthless image and here by some miracle which only occurs once in a millennium, we finally got a Prime Minister, no less with that image, why would you give it up ? In fact, Modi should not have directly engaged with Paki at all, not over-exposed himself at all, and maintained a mystery, an aura and a sense of darkness and foreboding around him, which could have been used as a huge advantage for the country, when everybody and their brother would keep guessing what Modi is thinking and what he would do next - kinda like an Indian rightist Mao with a finger on the nuclear button. I certainly hope that Modi did not fall into the trap of self-aggrandizement by our typical Indian thinking that no party is a real party or a big party or a prestigious party, unless some "big people" attend that party and thus his invites to these other Saarc leaders ("big people"). We all are familiar with the current syndrome or even the sickness that has inflicted us Indians from top to bottom - no wedding is complete or worth going to, unless there is a minister or two and a commissioner attending or at least an MLA or two and the collector, no matter how corrupt or uncouth they are. By the way, what is up with Farouq Abdullah these days. He comes from a "good family". I have never seen him this uncouth before. His son, Omar, is just a crook and an opportunist, but Farouq was a better guy. Better than both his father and his son. Now he is just uncouth.

2. The second thing that makes me apprehensive of whether Modi will meet our expectations is that fact that politically Modi does not have good advisers. I dont know much about Amit Shah and Nada, but I am not sure that even if they are the best, that they have the heft to counter all the corrupt, the mediocre, the charlatans, the personally over-ambitious and particularly the ignorant, the disloyal chameleons, the opportunists, the short sighted, the uneducated, the complete non visionaries, the castiests, the fools, the anti or non nationalists and the idiots which are the rest of the BJP party, just like any other political party in India. Let us look at who all surround Modi today. Arun Jaitley, falls in the total non-visionary, personally over-ambitious, possibly a disloyal opportunist, certainly a chameleon, at best a non-nationalist and very much part of the "old school congress political culture" (no I dont mean he was a Congressi ever). Such people do not want revolutions or to make waves, they want to feel cozy and secure in being part of the establishment so that they can now fully utilize, what they think is "their turn" to use power to their personal advantage. Jaitley will certainly pull Modi towards the "center", if not "left" and try to keep any "controversial" hardline decisions at bay. Next, Sushma Swaraj, the less said about her the better. Next, Rajnath Singh. Fat, dumb and happy and totally clueless. He was in the right place at the right time to ride the Modi wave. He was and is nothing more than a figure head. The only thing going for him is that he is loyal to Modi, will fight for him and he did not allow himself to feel self important enough to come in the way of Modi getting elected. He is also honest. But being dumb and a total non-visionary cancel out all his advantages. He in no way can match Jaitley or Swaraj in guile or cunning to act as a counter against them. Then look at all the others. There is no one that can be said to have either the heft or the vision or the conviction or the nationalistic credentials to second Modi, if ever he attempts any bold or revolutionary moves. BJP ruled and other party state governments will be another headache for Modi and will act as an ally of the likes of Jaitley and Swaraj, against Modi's natural inclinations and leanings. VK Singh ? Maybe, he comes close, but he does not have the heft to counter the heavy weights, at least yet. So, we have Modi, who will be internally sabotaged and externally challenged by other casteist groups, the likes of Lalu, Mulayam, MAyawati, Mamata, Amma and maybe even Patnaik, although I tend to think that Patnaik is the most sober of the lot and not as destructive. The problem is that Modi does not have a good support system. In addition to Amit Shah and Nada, if he can get people like Brahma Chellany, and the likes of KPS Gill, maybe he will create a better support system for himself. He should also try and get people like Maninderjit Singh Bitta, regardless of party affiliations to join him and then create a new "Modi corps" to create a full line of succession for continuity in addition to create a support system for him in the present.

3. The third thing that makes me apprehensive is the Indian people in general. When the people by an overwhelming majority are corrupt, non-nationalist and uncouth and presumably mostly voted for Modi only on the basis of them being "aspirational", not "sacrifitional", I wonder what one man alone can do, no matter how tall or how strong or how good. He has one billion crabs to pull him down.

rsangram wrote:
I want to re-post something I posted immediately after Modi victory on may 28 2014. I believe several people went ballistic reading this post, including and particularly, a certain person who purportedly practices "healing" in a Congress ruled state. He and a lot of people subscribe to the theory that there is nothing wrong with India, other than Western propaganda and the Macaulyte class that the British left behind in India and that criticizing India on anything other than those two counts, amounts to blasphemy, punishable by Sharia justice.

The gist of my post of May 28 2014, quoted above, was that Modi may be a good guy, but what can he alone do, when there are a billion crabs pulling him down. I was attempting to say that little by little, the billion people, will begin to wear Modi down, and clip away at his wings, step by step, systematically, by banding together and uniting, despite their mutual hate for each other, for the sole purpose of destroying Modi. Even a dictator cannot be effective in enforcing his writ, without a certain minimum critical mass, a certain minimal plurality (I am not saying majority), but a good 20 to 25% of the population which forms a core support for him. Modi is not a dictator, far from it. He has to operate within the confines of Indian "democracy", the most mafiaized kleptocracy ever invented by mankind. In a kleptocracy, the value and the reward system are corrupted and perverted. A"thief" is a good guy and an honest person is someone to be stomped upon and excoriated, ultimately destroyed. Does that not define India of today ? Has India not progressively becoming more and more of a kleptocracy, every day that passes, starting in 1947 ?

It does not help that Modi's self confidence has also been dented by almost 15 years of daily harangue by the media and Indians of all hue. He has been called a mass genocidal murderer by our own people, the Indians, a "Hitler", a regressive neanderthal-lic, "intolerant" Hindu, a killer, killer and more killer. It certainly appears that these daily and sometimes five times a day, non-stop and vicious attacks, coupled with the Indian Kleptocracy, which goes by the name of "democracy", has constrained and confined Modi to be at best a "figurehead" with no teeth, no power and no will to do anything, but talk a good game. See, even "thieves" and "kelptos", have this need to get away from it all and hear a lecture on real virtue, every now and then - a kind of self-piskology, to make them feel good about themselves, despite the orgy of thievery they indulge in, all day long. And Modi, alas, is now reduced to merely providing them this delusional, lofty and healing rhetoric, so that the kleptomaniacs feel good about themselves. Poor Modi! But more importantly, Poor India and Poor Indians. I weep for you! I weep for us.

It is better to disappear as a civilization, than to transform ourselves into a Kleptocracy - a civilization of thieves, and in our case, a cannibalistic thieving nation. We dont rob others, we just rob each other.

Primus wrote:

rsangram wrote:
I want to re-post something I posted immediately after Modi victory on may 28 2014. I believe several people went ballistic reading this post, including and particularly, a certain person who purportedly practices "healing" in a Congress ruled state. He and a lot of people subscribe to the theory that there is nothing wrong with India, other than Western propaganda and the Macaulyte class that the British left behind in India and that criticizing India on anything other than those two counts, amounts to blasphemy, punishable by Sharia justice.

The gist of my post of May 28 2014, quoted above, was that Modi may be a good guy, but what can he alone do, when there are a billion crabs pulling him down. I was attempting to say that little by little, the billion people, will begin to wear Modi down, and clip away at his wings, step by step, systematically, by banding together and uniting, despite their mutual hate for each other, for the sole purpose of destroying Modi. Even a dictator cannot be effective in enforcing his writ, without a certain minimum critical mass, a certain minimal plurality (I am not saying majority), but a good 20 to 25% of the population which forms a core support for him. Modi is not a dictator, far from it. He has to operate within the confines of Indian "democracy", the most mafiaized kleptocracy ever invented by mankind. In a kleptocracy, the value and the reward system are corrupted and perverted. A"thief" is a good guy and an honest person is someone to be stomped upon and excoriated, ultimately destroyed. Does that not define India of today ? Has India not progressively becoming more and more of a kleptocracy, every day that passes, starting in 1947 ?

It does not help that Modi's self confidence has also been dented by almost 15 years of daily harangue by the media and Indians of all hue. He has been called a mass genocidal murderer by our own people, the Indians, a "Hitler", a regressive neanderthal-lic, "intolerant" Hindu, a killer, killer and more killer. It certainly appears that these daily and sometimes five times a day, non-stop and vicious attacks, coupled with the Indian Kleptocracy, which goes by the name of "democracy", has constrained and confined Modi to be at best a "figurehead" with no teeth, no power and no will to do anything, but talk a good game. See, even "thieves" and "kelptos", have this need to get away from it all and hear a lecture on real virtue, every now and then - a kind of self-piskology, to make them feel good about themselves, despite the orgy of thievery they indulge in, all day long. And Modi, alas, is now reduced to merely providing them this delusional, lofty and healing rhetoric, so that the kleptomaniacs feel good about themselves. Poor Modi! But more importantly, Poor India and Poor Indians. I weep for you! I weep for us.

It is better to disappear as a civilization, than to transform ourselves into a Kleptocracy - a civilization of thieves, and in our case, a cannibalistic thieving nation. We dont rob others, we just rob each other.

And, 18 months after the election, do you still believe that Modi is simply a figurehead, a well-meaning but powerless man, 'reduced to rhetoric'? Is there any glimmer of hope at all, or is it as always just 'gloom and doom'?

A_Gupta wrote:Wow, if India had one extra rupee coin for each expression of gloom, then India would sink under the weight of all that money!

If India is so sunk that only One Man (which is virtually a Hollywood trademark) can save her, then might as well pack up bags and move to, say, Pakistan.

rsangram wrote: What makes you hopeful ? Not wishful, hopeful ?

A_Gupta wrote:

rsangram wrote: What makes you hopeful ? Not wishful, hopeful ?

Indians!

Not all 1.2 billion of them, but there's plenty of good ones.

PS: Also, just think - a few months as CM in Gujarat and 2002 riots happen. CM Modi went through that. This is merely a defeat in the elections after one year as PM, nothing as terrible and tragic and divisive as 2002. PM Modi is not a wimp like me or you. Few reach the top who are not incredibly tough and resilient. I doubt PM Modi was dejected at the defeat for more than a couple of hours. He would instead be going to Plan B, strategizing his moves ahead, thinking how to separate the milk from the water within his party, and so on.