Category: Nation

Vote for… errr… whom?

There are a lot of online campaigns going on behalf of several candidates for India general elections in 2009. The whole drama is very interesting. It looks like the campaign officers believe that the online campaign is going to work in India just like it did in USA. Evidently, they have not considered the % of citizens in India who use Internet and what % of it would actually go to the polling booths. The first place of course goes to Advani as PM. His cyber team has succeeded in bringing him in every single website (and it looks like these website owners do not know how to block a URL from appearing in their Google Ads).

Then there is Mallika Sarabhai who is contesting against L K Advani from Gandhinagar. I was kind of surprised to see her Facebook support group as I do not understand how it is going to help her win the elections in Gandhinagar. I’m just wondering, how many of the Gandhinagar voters are going to vote for Mallika Sarabhai just because of her online campaigns? How many Netizens are there in her constituency? How are the online campaigns going to work if the on-ground campaigns are not working? So I think she better use her time for on-ground work, encouraging people to vote, convince them of the politics of BJP, and how she can make Gujarat a better place. It just doesn’t matter a person from Thrissur constituency supporting Mallika Sarabhai to win from Gandhinagar through a Facebook group, because it is finally up to the people of Gandhinagar to decide whether she goes into parliament or not. And just to add, I really would like to see her win against L K Advani.

Then there is Shashi Tharoor, the poster boy of Congress from Kerala. I saw him today in the evening, campaigning outside a restaurant at Trivandrum and people have mixed reactions. Some say “he looks so handsome” and thus their votes might go to him. Youngsters see him as “an icon”, as he had served some top positions in the UN and they believe that he would be a refreshing change if he gets elected as he is an educated person. The others see him as “an outsider” who came to Kerala just to fulfill his political ambitions and do not know the on-ground issues and they even say that he doesn’t know to speak good Malayalam. An opposition to this says that alll politicians are contesting with their political ambitions and Shashi Tharoor is no exception, so there is no need to see him with a particular hatred. And add to that, the accused links Mr. Tharoor has with Coca-Cola company (read this in connection with Plachimada issue).

I really wish that Mallika Sarabhai wins in Gandhinagar against L K Advani. But I do not have a say there as it is up to the people of that constituency. So I hope Mallika does some work on the ground out there, rather than spending her time to create Facebook groups and raising her popularity over the Internet, if she is not contesting for the PM post.

Business & Politics Over Mahatma Gandhi

 

James Otis: First of all was to try to increase the GDP from 1 per cent to 3 per cent to the poorest of Indians. Gandhi would have deeply supported that proposal because the Indian Government since the Mumbai attacks have shifted more of its focus on the military and reduced on the GDP. [Source]

Anand Sharma: Gandhi himself would not have agreed to the conditions. Government of India who has to protect the sovereignty of the people cannot entail to such conditions. [Source]

For Gandhi’s descendants, the sale seemed to contradict his aversion to materialism. Gandhi himself had given away several of the items. [Source]

PS: Meanwhile, Congress party has spent some money for buying the rights of Jai Ho, the Oscar winning song by A R Rahman.

PPS: Why do our nationalistic pride remain in materials and symbols, and not in action?

(Image courtesy: Sky News)

The Sene Sainik

Hey! What’s up? Haven’t seen you lately.

Yeah, I’ve been busy.

Busy with what? Work?

Yeah, work. But not the office work. I joined a cultural army and was busy protecting our culture.

Oh, you joined the Sene Sainiks? I heard you guys beat up some girls in a pub or something? Man, why would you do something like that??

We were actually protecting our women, silly! Did you know that Muslim boys lure away our girls and get them converted at Ponnani in Kerala? And it is not only our girls, but the Christian girls too. Christian girls man! Your tribe. Do you see the danger now? We gotta be together in this fight against Jehadi Romeos!

Oh! Didn’t know that. Hmmm… but hey! Wait a minute! Why would you beat the girls for what boys are doing to them? You were beating up them poor victims for the fault of someone else?

That is why we talk about culture saala! These girls did not consider our warnings about Jehadis and became a threat to our great culture.

So you beat them up in order to protect our culture?

Well, that too.

But what right do you hold to come in and beat up these girls? Shouldn’t it be left to themselves to decide what they want to do with their life and culture?

When they fail on their duty to uphold the culture, we come in and take care of that. See what a selfless service we do to our country?

Hmm… well, you remind me of someone else whom I’ve seen in the media. I can’t remember who it is, but you resemble him a lot.

Oh yeah? Who is it? Well, anyways, do you see what western culture is doing to us with all these?

Well, what is this western culture?

Immorality, that’s what the West is all about! They booze, they date, they always think about sex.

I’m just thinking who was that other guy I’ve seen on TV. You remind me of him a lot.

What?

Forget it. Anyways, I think we had all of what you said since thousands of years back? We even wrote Kamasutra that explained… well.. you know… several ways of having sex.

That is part of the culture, silly! We taught the world how to have sex! And compare it to what these girls do in pubs! They get boozed and dances with men of other religions! What a horrible crime that is!!

Oh yeah, I can see that. And what is it that you have against Valentine’s Day?

Valentine’s Day is a Christian festival. And Christians imported such festivals from the West to convert people to Christianity!

Valentine’s Day is a Christian festival? I never heard of any Church in India celebrating the festival of St. Valentine.

You wouldn’t. Such are the tactics of the Christians!

I got it! I got it!!

What?

The guy whom you reminded me of.

Who is it?

Osama Bin Laden! He too used to talk passionately about protecting his religion and culture from the west, the Christian west’s agenda to de-stabilize the Islamic countries, and upholding the culture by taking it on women and innocent people!

You bloody pseudo-secularist, Commie, Christian! I will see what to do with you!

(PS: Those who are interested can also participate in the Pink Chaddi campaign. There could be no better Valentine’s Day gift than a Pink Chaddi to send to the Sri Ram Sene folks! 🙂 )

Indian Taliban back in action

The names change, from Bajrang Dal to Sri Rama Sena, but the radical Hindutva organizations continue to assault the countrymen in the name of ‘protecting Indian culture’. This time they attacked women. When I had written against such groups earlier in this blog, there were people protesting and saying that calling them Indian Taliban is too much. But just read the news quote given below and tell me how these Senas are any different from Taliban. Also tell me how come we are vocal against Taliban but so silent on such home-grown organizations.

The Sena activists accused the women of involving themselves in immoral activities, including consuming alcohol, dressing indecently, and mixing with youths of other faith”.

And don’t think that they would stop having fun now. The day when these organizations conduct their annual ritual of cultural protection is coming up. And yes, you guessed it right – the Valentines Day on February 14th. Last year, it was the turn of Bajrang Dal to clean up the culture. We got to either speak up against these groups or get ready to be Talibanized in the near future. Taliban too, started out with small scale operations.

Related posts: The Hindutva hypocrisy again

(Image courtesy: Times of India)

Divided We Stand?

[This article first appeared as the cover story (on regionalism) in the December edition of Mutiny print. Mutiny is the first blog to go print. Click here to subscribe to Mutiny.]

My home is in a small town in the middle part of Kerala and I work in Kerala’s capital city. There is a common perception that people in this southern capital city are arrogant and cannot be trusted. When I was about to move to this city, I was told by many people that “do not trust them, they always cheat” or “the women out there are so clever and cunning” etc. Even people who live in the other southern districts were of the same opinion when it came to the capital city. After I moved to the new place and started interacting with my colleagues, some of them had curious questions about the northern part too. Questions like, “I heard that in the northern part, women head families and men are like mere servants?” or “I have had bad experiences while I was in your town. Don’t take me wrong, but most of the people from the northern part are not trust worthy”. I couldn’t help myself but laugh at these questions and I told them that it is the same perception that exists in the northern part about people from south.

And I am not talking about North India, when I say North. It is just the northern part of a state in India – Kerala. This is among the people who share the same language, culture and customs. And I think that the regional conflicts are going to be the next biggest threat that India will have to face after the current phase of communal issues. Or I should say India is seeing it already?

Ever since India has got freedom from the British, the nation has seen separatist movements from several parts of the country. The fact that India was a land divided of small countries in itself was a huge task for the people who took over the administration from the British to establish national integrity. It is a mysterious thing that we still stand united even though we have huge differences in many levels.

The differences were many – racial, linguistic and cultural. Telangana movement which dates back to the independence era was among the first of this kind which was based on the linguistic difference where Telugu speaking people did not want to be a part of Tamil dominated Madras state. There was Jharkhand movement which later became separate state. Take the anti-Hindi movement, led by the eminent Tamil leader Periyar Ramasamy, which was a result of fighting against making Hindi as official language of India. Or the Gorkhaland movement. Or the Khalistan.

But it is not just in the history that we have to search for examples of regionalism. Kashmir still stands in the front row when we look into the current issues. The north-eastern states in India feels alientated by the rest of India and separatism has taken form of militancy in some of parts of this area. ULFA in Assam for example. People fight in the name of linguistic pride whenever two states have a conflict between them. Remember the riots between Kannadigas and Tamilians in the south India? Or the discrimination and violence against north-east people and their women in the northern part of India. Or Maharashtra Navnirman Sena’s violent anti-North movement. Or the Biharis being targeted by the militants in Assam.

The other day I was discussing with my friends about the possible solutions to end religious conflicts in India. So many suggestions came up – like promoting agnostism and atheism, a stricter implementation of a secular state etc. Then one friend suggested that the only possible solution is more and more of a globalized world. “Globalization would displace people. It will force them to migrate to other parts of the country or world, in search of a better living and earning. Then they will be forced to mingle with other linguistic, religious groups and they will be stayed away from their regional/religious/community cocoons of comfort. This would give them no space to organize and fight for causes like regionalism or religion. Yes, they will be alienated from their roots. But peace will return.” But then, if globalization had helped people to alleviate conflicting issues, there would not be so much troubles still existing in the world.

India is witnessing more and more internal conflicts these days which are based on the regional and linguistic differences. The fact remains that we do not see this under current in the present situation of religious tensions. But once that is gone, is it going to be regionalism and related differences which will emerge as a stronger enemy to the very concept of India?

The distance from Taj to CST

The Mumbai terror attack has reaffirmed the fact that there are two faces of India. The common man’s India and the VIPs’ India. The thriving creamy layer has space everywhere and it’s opinion matters while the other India is nothing but some mere objects to use for power. Oh and I ‘m not talking about the political class yet, but the media.

The media reports on the Mumbai terror attacks make us feel like that the CST/VT shootout never happened. It was mentioned in the initial news reports, and then slowly pushed to the back bench. Taj and Oberoi had come in by that time. I can understand if it was because the fight in the Taj was the longest one in the whole terror episode. But even after the whole mess was over, little has been mentioned about the CST/VT shootout where 55 people were killed by the terrorists. But media loved Taj more. The images of Taj with flames filled the background of the news desks and TV channels everywhere. When 26/11 became India’s 9/11, the Taj was called as the Twin Towers of India. An icon of India, they said. The TV cameras couldn’t hold off it’s eyes from Taj even after the whole mess ended up. The common man and his CST was of no interest to them. Then came the elite – TV and movie stars, high-profile writers – right infront of the camera and began recalling their nostalgic memories of the hotel. Shobha De was furious. So was Ratan Tata.

India’s elite and creamy layer have got the clear message – that they could be the next possible victims of a terror attack. It many not always be those people who travel in the packed trains carrying thousands of ordinary people. It may not always be those pan wallahs, or sabji vendors who get killed by a time bomb. And that fear has made the elite spoke like they never did. And I guess the government would listen to them now.

In an article titled “Hotel Taj : icon of whose India?“, Gnani Sankaran writes:

And the TV cameras did not go to the government run JJ hospital to find out who those 26 unidentified bodies were. Instead they were again invading the battered Taj to try in vain for a scoop shot of the dead bodies of the page 3 celebrities. In all probability, the unidentified bodies could be those of workers from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh migrating to Mumbai, arriving by train at CST without cell phones and pan cards to identify them. Even after 60 hours after the CST massacre, no channel has bothered to cover in detail what transpired there.

The so called justification for the hype the channels built around heritage site Taj falling down (CST is also a heritage site), is that Hotel Taj is where the rich and the powerful of India and the globe congregate. It is a symbol or icon of power of money and politics, not India. It is the icon of the financiers and swindlers of India. The Mumbai and India were built by the Aam Aadmis who passed through CST and Taj was the oasis of peace and privacy for those who wielded power over these mass of labouring classes. [ Hotel Taj : icon of whose India? ]

Meanwhile, V P Singh, a former prime minister of India, who was fighting cancer for a long time passed away and not many people have noticed it. The media did not cover the news with the due importance even after the terror attacks. They were after banking upon the emotions after the terror attacks.

Mumbai Terror Attack – Some thoughts

Mumbai Terror Attacks

After watching all the gunfires, blood, gore and fire in Mumbai through live TV streaming, I went to sleep today by 4 in the morning. By the time I woke up, more than 100 people were killed and 200 injured (reportedly, 125 people killed as of now including 14 policemen and left 327 injured). The financial capital of India was taken under control by a group of terrorists. The fight was and is on. More than 24 hours passed and our police and army is still fighting with terrorists.

The attack seems to be planned and executed well, and it doesn’t look like it is done all alone by a home-grown terrorist outfit. Seeing the kind of massive ammunition and logistics they have (remember, they are still fighting us even after 24 hours), there must be some strong support from outside. Could it be global terrorist outfits like Al-Qaeda? Or is it the terrorist outfits rooted in our neighborhood Pakistan (and possibly supported by home-grown terrorists here)? Nobody has the answer yet, but the interesting thing is that the Pakistan’s foreign minister is on a 4-day visit to India from yesterday. So the attack could also be seen as an attempt to worsen the relationship between India and Pakistan.

Then I saw our Prime Minister’s face in the channels and by the time he opened up his mouth to “talk tough on terrorism“, I changed the channel as I was not in a mood to hear comedy. If these terrorists could take control of an entire city and kill more than 100 people and still fighting with the army, what kind of security do this country offer to it’s citizens? In India, only politicians and bureaucrats are sacred and valued, not the ordinary people who get killed in such terror acts. Oh, on that note, let me add, I really had wished (I know it’s a cruel wish) that a couple of our politicians were killed in one of these terror attacks, because it seems that only then the government would wake up.

It was a horrible scene to watch the Taj burn. And it took some time for the firefighters to reach to the spot. I’m just wondering, do we have any aerial firefighting method or was that option not feasible at the time? We spend money on so many feel-good projects, how about making our lives secure and feel-good? Is our government going to listen?

On the other hand, there are people who use this chance to spit venom on certain communities. The first thing that a colleague friend said in the morning was “I told you, all Muslims are terrorists“. Such blatant generalizations would only help to worsen the situation and cause unnecessary tension at the wrong time. I asked him if any Muslim was spared from the attacks or if only members of a particular religious community were killed. Well, it is better to ignore such people, but you can’t help just watching them spread hatred at this crucial hour.

My heart goes out to those who have been killed and their families. My salutes to the brave men who fought against the terrorists and those who have been killed in the process – Anti Terrorism Squad chief Hemant Karkare, encounter specialist Vijay Salaskar and additional commissioner Ashok Kamte. We can also not forget the service of the Firefighters, Police, Anti Terrorist Squad, National Security Guards, Army, the people who helped and still helping the helpers, those who are donating blood, those who are helping in every way they can. We should also appreciate the journalists, particularly the TV channels like NDTV and IBN covering all the events from several parts of the city, giving continued updates.

India is indeed incredible. And our government can perhaps change the tourism slogan to “Terrorist Devo Bhava“. You are welcome here fellow terrorists; please do come and bless us with your bullets.

(Image courtesy: nytimes.com)

They love Dalits

It looks like the news of Dalits and Tribals forming a larger political alliance has got the Congress and Communist parties worried in Kerala. Tribal leaders like C K Janu and M Geethanandan have joined hands with Kerala Pulayar Maha Sabha (KPMS – a Dalit organization) to become a political pressure group in Kerala because they have understood that, in India you have to counter caste politics with caste politics. I could see some changes in the mainstream political arena after this news got out.

On the way to my office in Thiruvananthapuram district, there is a board with the headline that says, “Congress strengthens those who have been sidelined” and it shows a picture of party’s newly appointed KPCC General Secretary and former minister M A Kuttappan, who is a Dalit. Then comes the news of P K Biju, a Dalit youth, being appointed as the national president of SFI, the students of wing of Communist party. It is quite interesting, because people affiliated to the trade unions of all major political parties (Communists, Congress and BJP) were allegedly involved in harassing women, blocking food, medicines and other essentials of the protesting tribals and dalits in Chengara. And all of a sudden, they seem to love Dalits.

From Goondaism to Terrorism

Whenever the bomb blasts, terrorist attacks and religious riots have made their way to the news headlines, Malayalees believed that nothing as such would happen in their part of the world. We always thought that such things happen because of the lack of education and since we have 100% literacy in Keralam, nothing will happen here. But this comfort zone has been busted with the news of two terrorists from Keralam killed in Kashmir.

This news and the investigation followed have brought out some terrible truth. That the state has become a major recruitment center for terrorists of the border. The newly recruited terrorists were taken for training in Pakistan and then later get ‘appointed‘ in Kashmir to fight the Indian Army. What is more interesting is the reason that attracted the Malayali youth to terrorism. One of the dead terrorists was a goonda prior to joining the terrorist group. Varghese Joseph, a born Christian who later converted to Islam, was a member of the notorious gang of Thammanam Shaji, a notorious gang leader. The investigative agencies say that Shaji has helped recruiting many youngsters to the terrorist groups. These goondas do not have any religious motive other than the financial gains. So they join the terrorist groups and they get benefits – motor vehicles and a monthly allowance. This money comes from the terrorist groups like Lashkar-E-Toiba.

So goondas turn to terrorism, but what leads the youngsters to goondaism? It is their penchant for easy-money. I can quote an example here. I remember the time when my neighbor was building his house. There was this young boy, not more than 18 years old, who came to do the masonry. You could hear him use the swear words aloud and that little fellow used to scold the older women in the team. Everybody had noticed him back then. By the time I saw him next, he had turned out to be the infamous pick-pocketer and small-time ganja dealer of the area. After a couple of years, I saw his photo in the newspaper. By this time he had become one of the most notorious goondas in the town. He and his gang mates were arrested for killing someone from the opposite group and their photo was in the news paper.
Continue reading From Goondaism to Terrorism