The Rediscovery of India

Sorry Can’t Make a Dead Man Alive

May 082012

A timeless line from Dr. S.L Bhyrappa’s multi-layered and philosophical novel Saakshi (Witness) reads as follows:

There is no greater arrogance than the arrogance wrought by a sense of self-righteousness.

This quote accurately describes Yoginder Sikand’s textual barrage flowing over a course of 4373 words. So do we really need to care or pay any attention to his—with due respect—outpouring? No and yes. No because he’s not relevant anymore in the same sense as Ram Puniyani or Genocide Suzie aren’t relevant anymore, and paying him attention gives him undeserved and unnecessary prominence. Yes because his outpouring has brought him exactly that undeserved prominence, and more importantly, has exposed his opponents to be the uncritical and heedless idiots that they are—yet again.

Exploiting Dalits in the Name of Beef

Apr 202012

Introduction

I’d have been surprised if this hadn’t happened at Osmania university.

It was past midnight on Sunday when the organisers of the festival located one of the students who strongly opposed inclusion of beef in the menu and stabbed him. They also torched a media van deployed at the university for covering the beef festival. Early on Monday, the protesting students set on fire a state road transport bus passing through the campus.

And I won’t be surprised if it happens again and again in future—either at Osmania or elsewhere. The logical outcome of decades of sustained social poisoning is violent eruption.

Shame on You Madam!

Apr 162012

This woman is the worst thing ever to happen to the Office of the President of India. Worse even than that deceased dynasty-server who pompously declared that “If my leader [Indira Gandhi] had said I should pick up a broom and be a sweeper, I would have done that. She chose me to be President.”

Everything she’s touched in the past five years has turned to ashes. This nation has forgiven most of its past Presidents who invariably took sustenance from the peanuts thrown by the Dynasty, and behaved like cheapsters—begging not to be evacuated from posh government residences, demanding taxpayer-funded privileges for their families, trying to hush up the murder committed by their grand-relatives and so on. But none of our past Presidents have done what this woman has done: she has snatched 2,61,000 square feet of land allotted to build a housing colony for our armed forces.

Posted by Sandeep at 8:26 PM
45 Responses
Commentary, Indian Politics
Armed Forces, Commentary, Congress, Congress Party, Indian Politics, Indian President, Politics, Pratibha Patil's Land Grab, President of India, Shame on Pratibha Patil, Shame on UPA

Didi, Don’t Give In!

Apr 122012

If you thought that the Left was near-finished after its 2009 Lok Sabha election drubbing followed by Mamata Banerjee’s sweeping victory, think again. It’s political fortunes have truly gone to hell but remember it was Satan who proudly proclaimed that he’d rather be Number One in Hell than be Number Two in heaven. And so although the Left’s political prospects have grown bleaker and bleaker, its evil intellectual tentacles have remained pretty much powerful and pervasive as before.

The latest example is how Mamata Banerjee, who on April 6 thundered that she’d banish Marx from high school history textbooks, softened a little in just three days and said that Marx & Co were not “untouchables.” This softening is what illustrates my note on the Left’s evil tentacles remaining pervasive even now, and even in a state where Didi has all but decimated it.

But history rewriting is just one, but very significant part of the whole story.

Guest Post: Sex, porn, and the Indian Politician

Mar 222012

This post is authored by my Twitter friend valhalla_ in response to the media-created “porngate” in the Gujarat assembly.

"An intellectual is a person who’s found one thing that’s more interesting than sex." ~ Aldous Huxley

Everybody is not a Narendra Modi who treads the life of a warrior monk. Most politicians are normal people who have joined politics to get rich quick or wield power, and they have normal sexual instincts just as everybody else. Had they no power they would have fantasized about a sexy Vidya Balan just like the guy next door. Now, because of their political position, they can actually realize all their lecherous dreams (read: Amar Singh, Mulayam Singh, Kamal Nath etc). This is the truth, and the Indian masses know that our so called leaders have rather colorful lives; yet we hanker after this image of chastity and poverty that our leaders should have. Its a vicious circle of the hypocritical expectations of society and the corresponding hypocritical behaviour of our politicians.

Posted by Sandeep at 3:08 PM
44 Responses
Commentary, Indian Politics, Media Watch
Gandhi, Guest Post, Gujarat, Gujarat Porngate, India, Indian Politics, Mahatma Gandhi, Media, Media Watch, Morality, Nehru, Nehru-Edwina Affair, Politics, Sex Lives of Politicians

Modi’s Image MakeOver is a Media-Created Myth

Mar 202012

The latest news item to cause a fresh bout of uncontrollable loose motions in the Indian English media is seeing Narendra Modi’s picture on the cover of the Time magazine. Here’s the picture in question:

Being the long-time Congress-cultivated Pavlovian breed that they are, the media wasted no time in giving wide coverage to the Congress party’s trashing of Modi instead of actually examining what the piece says.

In a line, the Time piece authored by some Jyoti Thottam repeats the same lies about Modi’s involvement in the Gujarat riots, grudgingly admits his development work and record of governance, and says that he has the potential to lead India in 2014.

2012 Assembly Elections: Stray Thoughts

Mar 072012

I find psephology tedious. At a level, it reduces democracy to a savage farce of a triumph of numbers over ideas, ideals, even philosophy. But the times we live in makes it a necessary evil and like everybody else, I give that evil its due. I consume psephological data at a bare minimum: I abhor trend-spotting, and analysis of every vote polled and every seat won or lost or retained. Out of the wisdom gleaned from experience, I’ve placed my faith in the historical sense and it has served me well. In this case—I know it’s easy to say this in hindsight but it’s true—I was fairly sure that Uttar Pradesh would go to the Samajwadi Party and Goa, to the BJP. I didn’t pay much attention to the three other states that went to polls. As far as these two states are concerned, there was simply no other way it could have happened.

Posted by Sandeep at 4:06 AM
41 Responses
Commentary, Indian Politics, Media Watch
Bahujan Samaj Party, BJP, Commentary, Goa, Ideals, Indian Democracy, Indian Elections, Manipur, Manohar Parrikar, Mayawati, Media, Media Mafia, Media Watch, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Priyanka, Priyanka Gandhi, Psephology, Punjab, Rahul, Rahul Gandhi, Samajwadi Party, SP, UP, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand

Brazen Bias

Mar 052012

It looks like Salil Tripathi, of late, has been in the news for all the wrong reasons. First it was this piece on Center Right India that examined his claims of being a libertarian, pro-free market, etc that led to some delightful exchanges on Twitter. And then he wrote an opinion piece in Mint titled Incredible Impunity, which should actually be titled Brazen Bias.

Of all the responses I read to this piece, only Kanchan Gupta’s two-part series that takes apart Salil’s hitjob on Modi is the best.

10 Years of Phenomenal Growth & 10 Years of Scavenging

Feb 292012

Are death anniversaries celebrated? “Celebrated” is an unfortunate choice of word to use in the same breath as “death.” And no, that word choice is not mine. It is the media’s. Somebody’s death anniversary is not celebrated unless that person is someone like Stalin. Speaking of which, Jawaharlal Nehru was the only head of a democratic state in the world who mourned the death of “Marshall” Stalin. Death anniversaries of the truly great and noble people rightfully deserve the label Memorial Day. Does anybody “celebrate” Jallianwallah Bagh? If the answer is yes, then he/she is celebrating General Dyer’s unmitigated cruelty.

Yet, for that filthy conglomerate of human scavengers who make up the Gujarat Riots Cottage Industry, the 700-odd dead Muslims presented them a lifetime opportunity to feed off their deaths. What else explains such shameless, and almost sadistically gloating headlines as this sample Google search shows?

Father, Spare us Thy Ignorant Sermon

Feb 212012

First, credit where it is due: sincere thanks to my all-knowing Twitter friends Gopi and Ranganaathan for bringing this to my attention.

Preface

A certain Father Dominic Emmanuel seems to have taken it upon himself to educate the Honourable Justices of the Bhopal high court about whether the Bhagavad Gita is a philosophical book or a religious book. What is it with the preachers of Prophetic religions who seem to possess an itch-powder, the main effect of which is to interfere with the followers and teachings of other religions? What or who gives them the right to tell people of other faiths what their books mean, their Gods mean, their practices mean, and how they should regard their holy people? Anyway, the power of the itch-powder being very…powerful, Father Dominic (Hereinafter referred to as Fr Dom. Don’t think dirty, you filthy sinners!) does what the itch-powder directs him to do. And we do have Itch Guard. Okay, bad joke.

Posted by Sandeep at 9:55 PM
81 Responses
Commentary, Indian Philosophy, Indian Politics
Bhagavad Gita, Bhopal High Court Judgement, Christian Lobby, Christianity Watch, Father Dominic Emmanuel, Gita, Hindu Epics, Hindu Philosophy, Hinduism, India, Indology, Secularism

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