Festival of the Politically Correct Sissies: Part 2

Jan 262012
 

Pick a name. Pick any name from the loathsome galaxy of the Politically Correct Sissies that I listed in the Part 1.

Let’s start with the head honcho, the White Mughal himself. Hartosh Singh Bal’s searing piece elicited the predictable accusation of racism from the stung Mughal. Bal called the Mughal’s racist bluff telling him he doesn’t know what racism really means. Badly beaten, the Mughal slunk away muttering a “regret.” School day lessons work: a bully will never bother you again if you hit back with equal or greater force.

Let’s pick another name. Girish Karnad. The man who famously led a tribe of followers to “protest” against the “saffronization/communalization” of Datta Peeta/Bababudangiri. The unsullied genteel extraordinaire in him trembled the moment he heard that cops planned to put him in jail as a preventive measure. He abandoned his anti-saffronization experiment instantly and dumped his Faithful Minions right at Hassan and fled back to Bangalore.

Let’s pick yet another name: Salman Rushdie, the dish that liberal fundamentalists of all hues across the world can neither spit nor swallow.

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Festival of the Politically Correct Sissies: Part 1

Jan 252012
 

There’s nothing literary about the Jaipur Literary Festival. It’s as political as political is. The list of who’s who that make up its firmament year after year reads like the Forbes List of Liberal Fundamentalists.  Perhaps Dalrymple’s List of Liberal Fundamentalists is a more accurate phrase. What “literature” have Shobaa De, Manil Suri, Pankaj Mishra, Ashis Nandy, Sonia Falerio, Suketu Mehta, Annie Zaidi, Anurag Mathur, and Tarun Tejpal written? Here’s a sample of the kind of “literary” discussions you get at that “festival:” political trash, milking the victimhood mammary, non-existent identity issues, gender nonsense, and the rest.

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Nazrul Bhawan or the Importance of Symbolism

Jan 052012
 

Apart from those active in the Arts, the only class of people who fully appreciate the enormous power of symbolism are those in politics. Politicians are true artists in that sense. While artists create and/or use symbolism merely as an aid and/or device, politicians practice it. Indeed, a politician endowed with genius is, so to say, better than the artist because the effectiveness of an artist’s symbolism is typically limited to one or a few works. Beyond that it descends into the realm of the cliché. However, a genius politician perpetuates his/her ideas across generations through the practice of the principles of symbolism with minimal or zero loss of effectiveness. And when this symbolism is challenged in any form at any time—even after the said genius-politician’s death, the ones currently in control of perpetuating it know what actually is at stake.

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The Madrassa on The Charles

Jan 042012
 

When even a man like Richard Nixon called Harvard the “Kremlin on the Charles,” he probably didn’t envision in how many horrible ways that would eventually ring true. In late 2010, Harvard, instead of doing the right and honourable thing, simply went ahead and showed exactly how Kremlinesque it was. Stalin would have nodded approvingly in his grave at its disgusting U-turn in a span of mere months. If you want the short version, Harvard has fallen from its hoary pedestal on which stood the likes of Emerson, Thoreau, and T.Roosevelt and has today become a sprawling den of petty fund-mongers who have exhibited no scruples in putting it on the fast-track to convert it to the Madrassa on the Charles.

The longer version began sometime early in December 2011 when it sacked Dr. Subramanian Swamy from teaching his Summer economics course, something he’s been doing there for ages. Here’s the dirty saga in full. Dr. Swamy has aptly characterized Harvard’s chicanery as a Spanish Inquisition.

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Most Loathsome People of India: 2011

Dec 062011
 

UPDATE:  In hindsight, I felt I was a tad harsh on B Raman. He has been replaced with a new and much more deserving candidate for said loathsomeness.

Sigh. It’s that time of the year—the only time of every year where I make a list. A list of the who’s who that have contributed most to pushing this country a few more miles down on the road to hell. As with the previous years, some names remain unchanged and some are new entrants, the only qualification being their loathsomeness quotient.

Also, same rules as before: if you find any additional candidates that you feel should be in this list, give their names and the reason why you think they should be in this list. If I’m convinced, I’ll acknowledge your contribution and add them to the list.

And so I present the Most Loathsome People of India for 2011 C.E.

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The Lion that Became a Lamb

Nov 202011
 

The Indian media overall is a whore with none of the ethics of a whore, a fact that’s pretty much self-evident now. Yet there are very few exceptions, and once in a long while somebody in this well-oiled and smoothly-functioning corporatized whoredom gets stung by the call of conscience and for a change, begins to tell the truth. That’s when the carrot-and-stick trick, as old as mankind, is employed. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: India is not a democracy and the Indian media is only as free as the government allows it to be. And no other party has perfected this trick as well as the Congress.

Case in point: DNA & Aditya Sinha. More specifically, this irrational, illogical, and factually-vacuous rant against Narendra Modi, which is presented, quite accurately under a “column” entitled reductio ad absurdum.

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Angana Chatterji, The Darling of Islamofascists: Part 2

Nov 052011
 

So we already saw how Angana Chatterji’s anthropological heart bleeds for every atrocity, brutality, and massacre committed in the name of liberating people and fighting against neo-imperialism. The fact that she finds America, not Saudi Arabia or Pakistan a very conducive place to pontificate on the liberating virtues of terrorism says a lot: use their money, their infrastructure, their media, and their government to help those who’ve sworn to destroy the US.

Which brings us to the mountain of hate-filled literature she has written on Kashmir. Much of her fame as a crusader-activist rests on the foundation of mountain. Of course, she decks up all this in the garb of academic and heartwarming phrases such as “gender & identity issues,” “self-determination,” “liberation,” “human-rights causes,” and “against militarized governance” in Kashmir. The only problem is that this Kashmir she talks about is an integral territory under Indian sovereignty and thus the logical conclusion of her own line of reasoning implies that she’s fighting against the Indian state. Which is eminently true.

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How Angana Chatterji Assists Islamic & Communist Terrorism: Part 1

Nov 042011
 

I first heard about Angana Chatterji in connection with the Narendra Modi U.S Visa denial episode.  That was some six years ago at which time her name was one among the numerous folks who had ruthlessly worked behind the scenes to make sure that the US didn’t give Modi the visa.

About a month ago, I saw this news report in Rediff, which said that she and Richard Shapiro, her long-time live-in partner (husband?) were suspended from work based allegedly on the complaints of some students. The same Rediff report also says that a huge section of the student community at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS), San Francisco, where she was working as Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology, was up in arms against the CIIS administration demanding that they reinstate the two professor-duo. In an age where universities have morphed into tiny battlefields where coaching is imparted primarily in politicking, I regarded this episode with a cynical sigh until I caught these two bits in that news item:

There are also rumours doing the rounds that Shapiro and Chatterji could have been suspended for their work on Kashmir. However, there is no confirmation on the same. […] According to student leaders, there’s a gag order issued on the professors on speaking about the suspension. However, Martin denied any gag order.

Then I decided to investigate deeper. Here’s what I found.

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Return of the Academic Mullahs

Oct 262011
 

Let’s not pretend that the soul-crushing shrillery of the academic mullahs of Delhi—led mainly by the mini-mullahs of the history department—has anything to do with academic freedom or “curbing our freedom of thought” or “censorship of education” and such other arrant nonsense.  It’s anything but that. It’s simply the latest instance of their decades-long ritual of opportunist sniffing to find out just how much damage their rabble-rousing can inflict. It’s the most recent manifestation of their insane loathing for everything Hindu, which prompted some of their elites to pervert Indian history on such a scale that the brains of at least three generations of Indian people have successfully been filled with poison. Equally, it’s also the most current attempt to somehow resuscitate their once-flourishing but now-crumbling empire built on the fetid foundation of historical distortion and supported by the pillars of lies and fraud.

Neither does their heart genuinely bleed for the late AK Ramanujan, whose ill-advised essay entitled 300 Ramayanas (that link has the full text of his essay. Recommended only for bravehearts. Keep an Anacin handy.) was erased from the Delhi University’s textbook list—which is what made these academic mullahs unleash the despicable display of collective insanity in the ongoing public orgy.

If I want to gloat, I’ll say that exactly 14 days ago, I had foreseen that the usual suspects would most definitely manufacture a controversy around this non-issue. Continue reading »

Forget Gandhi & Anna: Call Kautilya

Oct 242011
 

A quick jotting before the thought is lost.

What I had kinda predicted when the Anna Circus had erupted is slowly coming true. Most of the “leading jokers lights” in the circus are now beginning to chant the “my clown is funnier than yours” mantra.

Which is why I had warned that this isn’t the way to fight/check corruption.

Recall this dialogue from Chanakya—perhaps the best made TV serial to ever grace Indian television—where Indradutt, the Prime Minister of King Parvateshwar says the following about Kautilya (not verbatim) :

woh daan mein diya hua vastr pehenta hai aur bhiksha ke ann par palta hai |
Aise manushya ka kya swarth ho sakta hai?

(He wears clothes that were given to him in charity and eats food by begging. What kind of selfish motive does such a person have?)

Therein lies a clue to how you can fight/check corruption.

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