tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-75374893804572434892024-03-18T13:13:55.465+05:30Res GestaeMindscape/Rajiv DesaiRajiv N Desaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04886761100825959265noreply@blogger.comBlogger205125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7537489380457243489.post-68993550039729161582018-07-19T12:55:00.002+05:302018-07-19T12:55:25.076+05:30Ruby Tuesday<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<o:p> </o:p>Forty-eight years ago, on April Fools Day, I was a stripling, just 11 years of age. That day was momentous; when it sank into me that I would have to leave my beloved <st1:city w:st="on">Bombay</st1:city>, my precious <st1:street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on">Christ Church Lane</st1:address></st1:street> in the city’s <st1:placename w:st="on">Byculla</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Bridge</st1:placetype>, <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Bombay</st1:place></st1:city> 8 precinct. It was very important not to call it Byculla, which was <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Bombay</st1:place></st1:city> 27. It was our awakening class consciousness; the postal codes told the story of middle versus working class neighborhoods.</div>
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On April 27 of 1960, as I stood on the train doorway waving goodbye, I envied all my friends, who were much closer to me than I ever imagined: looking back on those years, I believe they changed my worldview. They made me appreciate the vibrancy of diversity. On that day, however, I was not just tearful but envious. They got to stay behind in this wonderful slice of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region> while I was hustled on to a train to Ahmedabad and to a moffusil life of sarkari hierarchies and the search for more and more exclusivity.</div>
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<st1:street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on">Christ Church Lane</st1:address></st1:street> was home to <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Bombay</st1:place></st1:city>’s aspiring middle class: cosmopolitan, diverse and secure. As a boy growing up in Court Royal, a wonderful old apartment house with large airy flats and lots of balconies, the only disagreements I had with my friends were about Elvis versus Cliff versus Pat Boone. Yes, my family was the only vegetarian in the building and I, the only Hindu and Gujarati kid. My friends constantly urged me to eat meat but in the end, accepted my cultural difference. </div>
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This was significantly different than my later experiences, where I was often put down because of my inability to eat meat. In <st1:street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on">Christ Church Lane</st1:address></st1:street>, there was such a cultural diversity that my food habits were accepted and I was included in the community of kids playing games and fooling around each evening until the street lights came on. My friend Ruby Rodrigues, now Patrick, told me the other day that we actually had lamplighters, which I found hard to believe.</div>
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We met Ruby on Tuesday, April Fools Day. The last time I had seen her was when we bade goodbye at the train station some 48 years ago. The story of how Ruby came to be at our house to dinner that night is about the currency of nostalgia in which modern technology enables us to span gaps of time and reach out to people we have known at different phases of our lives. Ruby is the older sister of my friend Peter with whom I hung around 365 days a years from age six to age eleven. It was a pre-adolescent bonding. </div>
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Ruby was this gorgeous girl from the Clare Road Convent with many good-looking friends. That apart, <st1:street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on">Christ Church Lane</st1:address></st1:street> was widely regarded as happening place with beautiful girls. We called all of them Diana, after the Paul Anka song, which went: “I’m so young and you’re so old…” We were innocent of sex then, only puppy love and panted after every lovely girl that we saw in the lane. It was pure romance but at a distance; we eyed them and then fantasized, forget sex or holding hands or kissing but simply a smile or an acknowledgment that we were alive.</div>
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When Carole Fraser, a green-eyed, brown-haired goddess once said hello, our knees turned to jelly and the only way we could recover is by indulging in physical horseplay, where mostly Peter and Teddy and various others jumped on each other. Because I was the smallest, I usually bore the brunt of it with a stoic grin…it was for Carol, after all. All those years, we learned through the biblical and cowboy movies that he who is set upon ultimately wins the girl.</div>
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Ruby’s older brother Victor was everyone’s hero…he sang, danced and had an easy way with girls; plus he has a hairstyle like Elvis that was in vogue those days. He emailed me when he read an article I’d written about <st1:street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on">Christ Church Lane</st1:address></st1:street> and set up this meeting with his sister Ruby. He called the night Ruby visited us…it was the first time we talked in 48 years. He said Teddy was in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Bombay</st1:place></st1:city>. Teddy and his brother Alan Oscar, who was my absolute icon, lived on the ground floor of Court Royal. They moved to <st1:country-region w:st="on">Australia</st1:country-region> and next thing I knew the next day I was talking to Teddy at the Taj in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Bombay</st1:city></st1:place>.</div>
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Ever the skeptical writer, the been-there -done-that variety, I am floored by this currency of nostalgia. It turned out when Ruby visited that our old friends Ivan and Ingrid Arthur were there and they also knew Ruby and her family. Ivan was for many years a colleague on the executive committee of HTA (now JWT). How does all this happen? The standard response is that <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">India</st1:country-region></st1:place> has a small elite community in which everyone knows everyone by six degrees of separation. </div>
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That may be a Western view but this is something of a phenomenon. It’s not just this encounter but over the past few months as I have written about reunions and other nostalgic moments, I have had an outpouring of responses from people I knew from the various phases of my life. I feel fulfilled even though some of my best friends today are people I knew in in high school and university in <st1:country-region w:st="on">India</st1:country-region> and the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">United States</st1:place></st1:country-region>. But these are a new crop of old friends. It is a wonderful feeling to know that over the next few years I will strike up in my life, like John Lennon, renewed acquaintances “people and things that went before.” </div>
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Rajiv N Desaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04886761100825959265noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7537489380457243489.post-64396590283201476052018-07-19T12:52:00.004+05:302018-07-19T12:52:48.412+05:30Race, Sex, Age Issues in US Politics<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><b></b><i>Lessons from the US Primaries</i><b></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">When I was growing up in America as a college student in the 1970s, I was struck by the idealism that seemed to pervade public life. The Woodstock generation rejected the material vision that dominated America in the 1950s and 1960s. Young people challenged the culture of accumulation and the power politics of those years including the GE automated kitchen (advocated by their spokesman Ronald Reagan), the Vietnam War, racial discrimination and favored women's rights, abortion, gun control.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">"Why would you challenge the American way of life that has done the greatest good for the greatest number and attracts so many people from so many other countries to make their way in this air-conditioned country," I asked <i>Newsweek's </i>David Swanson, who has been a very close friend for more than three decades since we attended graduate journalism school together. His cryptic answer was, "We can afford it."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">Today's "Millennial Generation" has replaced the "Boomers," who came of age during the Kennedy era; it is in the forefront of a movement against divisive ideology, soulless suburbia and the long-held notion of "manifest destiny," a worldview that was missionary (think Peace Corps) and morphed into a cash-and-carry imperialism that is well-documented in the activities of various American firms in Iraq. Worse, Boomer politics polarized the country as never before. I have a friend, who is so distressed by the new imperialistic mindset that she scours the internet to make herself aware of which companies support the Republicans and refuses to do business with them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">Far more than Richard Nixon or Ronald Reagan, George W Bush symbolizes the ideological divide in America. Many of us in India admire Bush because he brought a dose of realism to Indo-US relations. Nevertheless, I was shocked in New York, Chicago and elsewhere at the visceral dislike he evokes. While he did put together an international "coalition of the willing" in pursuit of his Iraq policy, back at home he is reviled with such ferocity that it takes my breath away. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">After eight years of Bush's aggressive neo-conservative agenda, it was clear that Hillary Clinton, the candidate favored by the Democratic Party as its presidential nominee, would waltz into the White House with her husband, former President Bill Clinton, in tow. A respected senator from New York, Clinton was considered a shoo-in…until Barack Obama came along.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">The forthcoming election was set to be all about Bush and erasing his divisive legacy. That got sidetracked by the campaign battle between Obama and Clinton. I was struck during my recent sojourn in America at the ugliness of the contest. It is as if the Democrats are divided, with working class whites, Hispanics and older people supporting Clinton and affluent whites, Blacks and youth backing Obama. I heard many say that in this battle of primordial issues of race and gender, the presumptive Republican nominee, John McCain, would benefit. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">However, once the Democrats have resolved the fight between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, the next major issue that will come up is about McCain's age; he is 71 years old and as such would be the oldest person to assume the office of US President. "We are going to address all our primordial issues of age, race and sex in this election," a lawyer friend told me.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">The US media have already written off Hillary Clinton; indeed there is a growing debate about the possibilities of a Democratic ticket in November that has Obama as the presidential candidate and Clinton as his running mate (for vice president). Gnawing questions remains, which Hillary has posed by winning all the major states like California, New York, Texas, Pennsylvania and Ohio: can Obama win over the large numbers of urban working class and rural whites, who gave Clinton huge victories in these states? Or will they simply shift their support to John McCain?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">These and other questions persist in keeping the Democratic primary race open. Clearly, Obama has won the popular vote and Clinton has no way of catching up. Even the so-called super delegates, senior leaders of the party, have lined up behind Obama, including Ted Kennedy and now Jimmy Carter. But Clinton has raised the issue of two crucial states, Florida and Michigan that were disqualified for holding their primary elections early in defiance of a party edict. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">Clinton maintains that she would have handily won a majority in both states. This, she claims, would have given her a majority of the so-called pledged delegates that are divided proportionately among the candidates based on the popular vote. Combined with her sweeping victory in the large industrial states, her campaign managers assert, this would have pushed her ahead of Obama. Many people think Clinton is right and believe that Obama will lose to McCain in November. Nevertheless, Obama has evoked widespread enthusiasm across the country with his charisma and message of hope in a fragmented body politic.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">On relations with India, it is clear that McCain would continue the favorable policies of Bush as would Clinton. Obama remains an unknown and he is seemingly unreachable because his campaign has been driven by popular small-time donations rather than fat-cat funding. I can only hope that South Block has found channels that lead to him through the IT community in Silicon Valley, which energized his campaign with technology. </span></div>
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Rajiv N Desaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04886761100825959265noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7537489380457243489.post-10168396379748377292018-07-19T12:49:00.002+05:302022-10-29T13:24:43.717+05:30Education: India’s Achilles Heel <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<o:p><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Caught Between Elitism And Vulgarity </span></span></o:p></div>
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On a recent flight from Goa to <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Delhi</st1:place></st1:city>, I was seated across the aisle from three loutish young men. Clearly newly rich, they bristled with flashy phones and watches. They did not turn off their cell phones even after the stewardess made an announcement; instead, they went right ahead playing with their toys. I asked them to switch the phones off. They stared at me insolently and went into a huddle from which emerged crude sounds that I finally understood to be mocking laughter.</div>
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This is the newly emergent middle class that an open <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region> has thrown up: crass, belligerent and reckless. It is the polar opposite of the privileged classes that presided over closed <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region>: snobbish, full of intrigue and cautious. There’s not much to choose between the two. The new one is vile; the other was servile. While I have been a champion of the newly emergent middle class, I guess my view was colored by my utter disdain for the privilegentsia of Fabian socialist <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region>. The new middle class is just as hideous as the privilegentsia. I call them the Vulgarians.</div>
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The privilegentsia was bred on elitism: right connections, right schools, <st1:city w:st="on">Oxford</st1:city> and <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Cambridge</st1:place></st1:city>. The vulgarian instinct is to push and shove; and when push comes to shove, to buy their way out. On the other hand, while mouthing homilies about the rule of law, members of the privilegentsia held themselves above the law. They never waited their turn for anything and without the slightest bit of embarrassment bent rules, flouted regulations and scorned the law. The emergent class of vulgarians makes no such pretence: they seem to believe everything has a price: schools, colleges, hospitals, and more worryingly: bureaucrats, policemen and judges.</div>
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During the privilegentsia raj, <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region> had to reckon with parasitic elites, who dominated state coffers, extorted usurious taxes and provided no public goods in return. Under their dispensation, ordinary citizens were cruelly ignored: no power, no water, no public transport, no roads, no airports, no telephones, no jobs, no primary education, no housing, no public health care and no sanitation. </div>
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The minuscule middle class was virtually targeted by privilegentsia policies and in many cases, driven into exile in the <st1:country-region w:st="on">United States</st1:country-region>, <st1:country-region w:st="on">Canada</st1:country-region> and <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Britain</st1:place></st1:country-region>. Those who couldn’t emigrate saw conditions decline rapidly: famines, civil disturbances, war, scarcity, suspension of civil rights under the Emergency proclamation in 1975 and finally total bankruptcy, which the forced the government to fly out its gold reserves in secret and mortgage them to the Bank of England.</div>
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Forced to open up the shackled economy, the government scrapped industrial licensing and various other controls. In the process, it unleashed animal forces that transformed <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region>. We went from being pitied as a “basket case” to being admired as an emerging world power with a dynamic economy. With GDP growth of nine percent and more for over the past five years, millions were lifted from poverty. From being an apostrophe in the demographic profile, the middle class burgeoned and became one of the world’s sought after market segments. Global business rushed in to cater to their needs and desires; local businesses shaped up to provide quality goods and responsive services.</div>
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Sadly, the flawed education system inhibited the transformation; it achieved less than what it should have. Under the privilegentsia raj, primary education was neglected and higher education became a screening process to weed out “people like them.” Thus, the ordained ones went on to <st1:city w:st="on">Oxford</st1:city> and <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Cambridge</st1:place></st1:city> to return to appointed positions in the privilegentsia. The others, who had no connections in the elite segment, either went abroad to seek their fortunes or stayed behind in an irrelevant higher education system to become rabble for political parties.</div>
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On the other hand, with the establishment of the IITs and IIMs, it produced engineers and managers whose skills were far too advanced to be accommodated in the makeshift “Ambassador Car” economy. As such these subsidized elite institutions became feeders to the global economy. All the Indian success stories in global business that are trumpeted in the pink papers are outcomes of the privilegentsia’s misbegotten priorities.</div>
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With the rise of the vulgarians, education has become a commodity; something you must have to get a job. All manner of dubious institutions have sprung up to cater to these needs. With the unprecedented growth of the economy, the need for talent has become so acute that just anyone with a degree or even a modicum of education can get a job. The three louts sitting across the aisle from on that flight from Goa to <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Delhi</st1:place></st1:city> were clearly among those. They probably had some education and were snapped up by some company and enrolled in an internal training program. They were like trained circus performers. </div>
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We have three types of “education.” The first was the classic Oxbridge type where it didn’t matter because you came back to an appointed place in the elite establishment. The other was a technical sort of training where you had no place in India but found a perch in multinational corporations or universities or other institutes of higher learning in the West. Now you have the third variety: of trained personnel focused on specific cog-in-the-wheel jobs.</div>
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Whatever happened to liberal values and civil norms as crucial objectives of education? Their lack is <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s Achilles heel.</div>
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<i>Copyright Rajiv Desai<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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Rajiv N Desaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04886761100825959265noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7537489380457243489.post-50142507097939166302018-07-19T12:45:00.002+05:302018-07-19T12:45:38.284+05:30My Kind of Town<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i>Springtime in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Chicago</st1:place></st1:city></i></div>
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It was unseasonably cold in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Chicago</st1:place></st1:city> for the middle of May. But then I remembered snow and an ice storm in this city of broad shoulders around this time of year in the late 1980s. One evening, I got off shivering from the El (short for Elevated), the train service that ferries people back and forth from <st1:city w:st="on">Oak Park</st1:city> to downtown <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Chicago</st1:city></st1:place>, just nine miles apart. My car, in the parking lot, was encrusted with sheets of ice. I used my key to crack the ice and opened my car to drive home. The temperature was below freezing but I held my curses, looking forward to the scotch I would pour myself when I got home in a few minutes. The prospect was heart warming, especially because I knew my friend and distant cousin Prakash would soon join me to share in the experience.</div>
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Prakash and I were neighbors and saw each other at all times of the week. We were never confined to the American ritual of meeting on weekends. Mostly we sat in my yard or his, savoring the spring weather, munching on deli sandwiches or enjoying an after dinner drink at 8 pm, while it was still light out. We did that in the winter too, sitting indoors, chuffing pizza or hamburgers, even devouring an occasional steak. And as days grew longer and warmer, mornings we packed our cucumber sandwiches and frozen gins, put on our whites and drove 30 minutes away to suburban Oak Brook (often called New Delhi West) to play cricket on the wonderful grounds of Hamburger University (the training school for McDonald’s, which is headquartered in the suburb).</div>
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This spring was nothing like that; just cold, though the skies were blue and the sun was shining high in the sky at six in the evening. As I drove to Prakash’s house, where I was staying as I always do since I left <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Chicago</st1:place></st1:city> some 20 years ago, it struck me that I didn’t miss a beat steering through familiar terrain. It was as if I never left. Despite many changes, <st1:street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on">Harlem Avenue</st1:address></st1:street>, the main drag, was the same. In the early days, when I returned to <st1:city w:st="on">Chicago</st1:city> from <st1:city w:st="on">Delhi</st1:city>, I had to remember to turn left from <st1:place w:st="on">Harlem</st1:place> onto <st1:street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on">Augusta Street</st1:address></st1:street> because to get to my house I had to turn right. After two decades, I have gotten used to it and so swaying to the music on my favorite radio station, I automatically turned right. Realizing my mistake, I turned around at the corner of <st1:street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on">Woodbine Avenue</st1:address></st1:street>, where my house was.</div>
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Cold though it was, and colder, I might add, than in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Delhi</st1:place></st1:city> at the height of winter, I had the car window open to gaze upon street corners and home gardens that were ablaze with sweet-scented lilac and to savor the wondrous aroma of barbeques amid freshly-mowed lawns. After a <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Chicago</st1:place></st1:city> winter, any temperature above freezing is considered warm. People were out jogging and pottering about their gardens. The song on the radio said it all, “Heaven, I’m in heaven…”</div>
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“Why did you ever leave this gorgeous place,” my sensible self wondered. As I steered the car toward Prakash’s magnificent home, I found no answer to the question. Granted, I have a wonderful life in <st1:city w:st="on">Delhi</st1:city> that is often the envy of my friends in <st1:country-region w:st="on">America</st1:country-region>, I live in a nice tree-lined neighborhood, where you hear birdsongs in the morning, not that different from <st1:city w:st="on">Oak Park</st1:city> and the neighboring <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placetype w:st="on">River</st1:placetype> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Forest</st1:placetype></st1:place> where Prakash lives. </div>
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Trouble is when I drive out of my compound, I am faced with the chaos of urban <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">India</st1:country-region></st1:place>. When I pull out of Prakash’s driveway to go anywhere, I deal not only with organized traffic but courteous drivers and peace with flower-bedecked beauty thrown in for good measure.</div>
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<o:p></o:p>In the early days, just after we relocated to <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Delhi</st1:place></st1:city>, my trips to the Oak Park-River Forest area were always laden with nostalgia. I used to drive past our house, my wife’s Montessori school, our daughter’s school and various other significant landmarks with tears in my eyes, wondering if I had done the right thing. Like Odysseus, my visits to <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Chicago</st1:place></st1:city> were struggles of “memory against forgetting."</div>
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<o:p></o:p>Over the years, my trips have become less nostalgic and more fun. Breakfast with my friends Suresh and Pappi Hathiwala, beer with Divyesh and Darshana Mehta, lunch at my friend Arsen’s downtown establishment Sayat Nova with my old buddies like Larry Townsend, Mike McGuire and Dan Tucker from <i>Chicago Tribune</i>, the daily in which I wrote regular columns, coffee with Jim and Alma, dinner at buzzing restaurants with Prakash and Alice, my hosts and drinks with Sam and Anu Pitroda. Then there’s Angad Mehta; to spend an evening with him is to be the company of Chauncey Gardner, the protagonist of Jerzy Kosinski novel, “Being There.” Played by Peter Sellers in the movie of the same name, Chauncey’s character was built around the axiom that perception creates reality.<br /><o:p></o:p><o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p></o:p>With the nostalgia out of my system, I’ve grown to love <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Chicago</st1:place></st1:city> differently…as a place to relax, engage in debate and have epicurean fun. I still wonder what it would be like to move back and partake of civilized life with an edge of sophistication. In my mind, the jury is still out. I am less convinced today than I was ten years ago that moving back is a not a good idea. But then, as my daughters unfailingly remind me, I am weird that way: left the land of opportunity at the peak of my life and am now ruminating on the possibility of spending my later years there. But then, this is the age when your intellectual powers are their peak and <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> is more hospitable. <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">India</st1:country-region></st1:place>, meanwhile, has become bereft; forget intellectual pursuits, there’s no room even for intelligence. </div>
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On the other hand, <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region> is like Circe, the nymph who kept Odysseus from returning to his beloved Ithaca of Greek mythology. It offers you pleasures of the senses that make you jettison your moral compass and corporeal senses. You live with dirt, filth, corruption and venality and forget about civilization and its comforts. The troglodyte writer, Nirad Chaudhuri, was insightful when he called <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region> “The Continent of Circe.” And like Odysseus, I must live in this sinful Aeaea, where Circe lived, even though it is plastic and crass and spurn the pleasure of making <st1:country-region w:st="on">America</st1:country-region>, the modern version of <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Ithaca</st1:city></st1:place>, my home again.</div>
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copyright rajiv desai 2008</div>
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Rajiv N Desaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04886761100825959265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7537489380457243489.post-64410551158019766992018-07-19T12:34:00.000+05:302018-07-19T12:34:08.978+05:30The Fall of India’s Berlin Wall<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-style: italic;">Comrades Sent Packing</span><br />
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"Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last."<br />
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Prakash Karat cuts a sorry figure today. His ideological posturing has cost the Left dearly. In 2004, his predecessor, Harkishan Singh Surjeet offered the UPA support and enabled the Congress-led coalition to form the government. In 2005, Karat replaced Surjeet and almost immediately the relationship between the Congress and the Left turned sour.<br />
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The dogmatic new general secretary unveiled a new era of hectoring the Congress and pushing an unreconstructed ideology that survives only in Jawaharlal Nehru University. Elsewhere in the world, the communists have been pushed to the fringes after the fall of the Berlin Wall.<br />
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Between April 2005, when Karat replaced Surjeet, and Tuesday July 8, 2008, when he foolishly withdrew support to the UPA, the Indian Left enjoyed more influence over the Indian government than Israel has over various US governments. And they blew it.<br />
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Karat’s obduracy has painted the Left out of the reckoning. Beijing’s mandarins cannot be very pleased. This is abundantly clear from foreign secretary Menon’s statement that China will support the Indian application to the Nuclear Suppliers Group. His dour, immature brinkmanship cost the Left its invaluable influence over government policy. The current crisis is of Karat’s making; it has rocked the India story that the world believes is crucial both in geopolitics as well as in international economics.<br />
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What the commissars don’t understand is that the entire world in banking on India’s emergence from a regional to a global power. US President George W Bush was among the first to grasp the importance of the transformation. As Prime Minister Manmohan Singh says, the whole world is rooting for India to emerge from its poverty and its Third World victim mindset. Should India succeed, it will set an example for poor countries. It did that in the 1940s when the Indian National Congress won independence from Britain and presided over a relatively smooth transfer of power.<br />
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India’s economic transformation will send a more powerful signal to the world than China’s phenomenal growth. The only other large nation that succeeded in wiping out mass poverty is the United States more than two centuries ago. Sure, China has lifted more people out of poverty than India; at the same time, it has clamped down on political opposition. “An iron fist in a velvet glove,” a Chinese-American scholar once called it.<br />
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What China lacks is soft power. That’s what the Olympics exercise is all about. The fact is that without the fuzzier aspects of power, it will always be an outsider wanting in to the world milieu. On the other hand, between cricket, Bollywood, the increasingly competitive and aggressive business community and the English-speaking, highly accomplished emigrant community in the West, India has more global influence than China.<br />
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The charge that India’s communists are a Chinese fifth column is not lightly made. Many in the highest levels of government believe it to be true. Any rational explanation of Karat’s latest move must factor it in. If, we give Karat and his commissars the benefit of the doubt, the only conclusion left to draw is that they are irresponsible and dogmatic. Any which way, they do not deserve to have a veto on government policy. Either as Quislings or as juvenile ideologues, they should be banished to the fringes from whence they sprang.<br />
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So Karat has now wrought his masterpiece of absurd theatre. It reminds me of a scene from the acclaimed film, “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.” With the forces of the law closing in on them, the duo found themselves at the edge of a cliff with a river flowing furiously below. They had no option but to jump. Sundance was hesitant because he couldn’t swim. Butch told him not to worry “because the fall will kill you anyway.”<br />
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That’s the fate of the Left today. They have pulled the plug and find they are the ones who will be flushed down the drain. The Congress is a mighty political player with over a century’s experience. It ran circles around the juvenile commissars and emerged triumphant.<br />
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Rajiv N Desaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04886761100825959265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7537489380457243489.post-48948379207668470662018-07-18T09:02:00.004+05:302018-07-18T09:02:26.826+05:30City in Decline<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Mumbai Sucks, <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Bombay</st1:city></st1:place> Rocks</div>
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<o:p></o:p>A global firm recently publicized a survey that found <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Bombay</st1:place></st1:city> the second worst city to live in. It rated <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Zürich</st1:place></st1:city> as the most livable. By the standard measures used in the survey, <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Bombay</st1:place></st1:city> certainly ranks poorly. But those who live in the metro will not agree; they swear by the sheer intensity and vitality of urban life in the metropolis and would live in no other place. It is actually the only real city left in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region>. Few people in <st1:city w:st="on">Bombay</st1:city> would want to live in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Zürich</st1:place></st1:city>, except those with Swiss bank accounts. The heart-stopping city is both: the hope and despair of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s future.</div>
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<o:p></o:p>I love <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Bombay</st1:city></st1:place>. <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Juhu</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Beach</st1:placetype></st1:place> is where I grew up. We moved to <st1:street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on">Warden Road</st1:address></st1:street>, where I attended a quaint little Parsi school called <st1:placename w:st="on">New</st1:placename> <st1:placename w:st="on">Model</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Infant School</st1:placetype> in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Oomer</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Park</st1:placetype></st1:place>, the setting in Salman Rushdie’s book, “Midnight's Children.” Later we lived in a wonderful art deco apartment house called Court Royal in <st1:street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on">Christ Church Lane</st1:address></st1:street>, bordering the school of the same name in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Byculla</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Bridge</st1:placetype></st1:place>. Our buzzing lane was known for its gorgeous girls and its melting pot of Catholics, Parsis, Jews, Muslims, and Anglo Indians. </div>
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<o:p></o:p>My old neighborhoods have changed beyond recognition. In Juhu’s Theosophical Colony, I believe there are still the bungalows and, I hope, the sense of community. The <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Besant</st1:placename> <st1:placename w:st="on">Montessori</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">School</st1:placetype></st1:place>, where I attended pre-school, is presumably still around. To roam on the beach and play on the roads of the Walden-style colony was a treat then but now I realize was a huge privilege.</div>
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<o:p></o:p>Walking on the beach from Juhu to Versova on a holiday morning was a treat. I felt I could be happy doing this for the rest of my life. When we said our morning prayer at the Besant Montessori school, unwittingly I replaced the phrase “thank you for the world so sweet” with “thank you for Versova.” This was long before the grim place called Lokhandwala. </div>
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In Juhu, my neighbors included Balraj Sahni and Prem Dhavan (the lyricist), among others. Many of them articulated anti-American views even while their children, like me, wore preppy penny loafers and striped T-shirts. This was my first experience with Indian hypocrisy. Diagonally across from our house was Ratilal Parekh, whose daughter Asha went on to make big waves in films. Our next-door neighbor was Devendra Goel, the film-maker who made escapist films that attracted large audiences. Given their fame and wealth, it was a bit of stretch for me to reconcile the Gandhian vision of simple living, high thinking. </div>
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<o:p></o:p>Juhu then looked a lot like today’s <st1:place w:st="on">Goa</st1:place>: coconut groves, white sand and blue sea. We walked freely on the beach and in the neighborhood. It was a wonderful island and to many friends and relatives, a weekend resort. Juhu was especially magical in the monsoon when we had to confront the rough sea and the swaying coconut trees that imperiled our roof.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p></o:p>When we moved to <st1:street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on">Christ Church Lane</st1:address></st1:street> from <st1:street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on">Warden Road</st1:address></st1:street>, I made friends with kids from different cultural backgrounds and there learned the value of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s diversity. My friends and I gawked at the gorgeous girls the lane was famous for. It was the time of Pat Boone’s <i>Bernadine</i>, Elvis Presley’s <i>Jailhouse Rock</i> and Cliff Richard’s <i>Dynamite</i>. On Friday nights, we listened transfixed to a family of troubadours who showed up in our lane every week, singing wonderful songs like <i>Little Serenade</i> and <i>Traveling Light</i>. We used to hang out in our balconies after dinner listening to them but mostly ogling the gorgeous green-eyed daughter who sang seconds.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p></o:p>These wonderful memories came back to me when I read about the survey that trashed the city. <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Bombay</st1:place></st1:city> has a unique culture: it is decadent, down market and egalitarian; its essence is the hallmark Tapori dialect. To be fair, the survey portrayed the city as it is today: on the brink, poised on the fine line between civilization and chaos; trapped in the nexus between the chauvinism of its political class and the violence of its underworld. Mumbai is very different from the solid middle class city of <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Bombay</st1:place></st1:city> I grew up in.</div>
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from daily news and analysis april 4 2007</div>
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Rajiv N Desaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04886761100825959265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7537489380457243489.post-43811195920322826382018-07-18T09:01:00.003+05:302018-07-18T09:01:26.478+05:30Yesterday Came Suddenly…<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Paul McCartney's Back</span></div>
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Now that he’s older, losing his hair, Paul McCartney has put out a new album, <i>Memory Almost Full</i>, stating his point of view. The songs are full of the past that haunts him and leads him to conclude that “all we wear is vintage clothes.” It is a lilting album that leaves us Beatles fans with a sweet and sour experience. In all his songs, except for the few where he is bitter about Heather Mills, Paul is telling us, as The Beatles have for nearly 40 years that “life is very short and there’s no time for fussing and fighting.”</div>
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<span style="font-size: medium;">In one of the songs in the album, Paul expresses disbelief that the years have flown by. “Yesterday came so suddenly,” Paul seems to say in his album. There is an element of gloom in his music, which is perhaps what makes it so haunting. The final song on the album is called “The End of The End”:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i style="font-size: large; text-align: left;">On the day that I die</i></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium;"><i>I'd like bells to be rung<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium;"><i>and songs that were sung<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium;"><i>to be hung out like blankets<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium;"><i>That lovers have played on<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium;"><i>and laid on while listening<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium;"><i>to songs that were sung.</i></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium;">Paul’s latest album is disconcerting.. He and his friends were simple <st1:place st="on">Liverpool</st1:place> boys, jamming and having fun at the Cavern Club. The popularity that followed was frightening. Success turned their heads: it was sex, drugs and rock and roll. Their later albums, influenced hugely by their immense popularity, like The White Album, were individual works with different musicians even while they were marketed under The Beatles label. We didn’t know it then but we still loved the good old rock and roll music. Paul’s latest album is a signal that that we should accept that The Beatles era has drawn to an end; it will, nevertheless, live forever as nostalgia that spans generations and it is up to our children to pass it on to theirs. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium;">Paul, John, George and Ringo made their own way in the world after the split. Their fans kept the band’s myth alive with the serum of nostalgia. In his latest album, Paul seems to be saying that all they did was made good music and later on experimented with new forms of rock. The icon status was bestowed on them and they dealt with it in different ways. In his song, “Ever Present Past,” Paul sings:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium;"><i>I couldn't understand the words that they were saying<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium;"><i>but still I hung around and took it all in<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium;"><i>I wouldn't join in with the games that they were playing.</i></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium;">The games that Paul laments are the ones we played as fans. We took four <st1:place st="on">Liverpool</st1:place> boys and put them on a pedestal. They represented our middle class values of rebellion without really giving up the comforts. For me as an adolescent growing up in the confusion of <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region>, they made me a member of a global youth community in which music was the currency. Amazingly, they sang about nostalgia to their teenage and adolescent audiences. Why else would “Yesterday” become such a monster hit?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Time </i></span><span style="font-size: medium;">magazine compared the Sergeant Pepper album to the works of Brahms and Schubert. Their “Let It Be” is sung as a hymn in churches worldwide. Such superb music! While coming to grips with their huge global presence, the Fab Four continued to make great music that their fans had to admit was getting better all the time. Paul’s new album renews my faith in The Beatles while he is saying “don’t live in the past.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium;">The Beatles phenomenon is inexplicable. Especially if you listen to what they have said since the split…that the brand was a burden. They stopped public performances and retreated into the studio on <st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">London</st1:city></st1:place>’s <st1:street st="on"><st1:address st="on">Abbey Road</st1:address></st1:street> to produce path-breaking music. They had no idea of the impact they would make all over the world. Their music will forever remain the sound of a changing world, milestones in our journey from the teens to adulthood.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium;">Forty-five years later, The Beatles story is told; all we have is memories and, as Paul says, the memory is almost full.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium;">from daily news and analysis july 25 2007</span></div>
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Rajiv N Desaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04886761100825959265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7537489380457243489.post-80528795851050342222018-07-18T09:00:00.001+05:302018-07-18T09:00:20.742+05:30Father's Day 2007<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b>Will they still need me? <o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><b>New York</b></st1:place></st1:state>: “This holiday was one etched in sadness as well as thankfulness.” A pastor in the town of <st1:city w:st="on">Monangah</st1:city> in <st1:state w:st="on">West Virginia</st1:state>, perhaps the poorest state in the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">US</st1:place></st1:country-region>, said these words at a service in memoriam of 360 men, who were killed in a coal mine disaster in December 1906. His <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Central</st1:placename> <st1:placename w:st="on">United</st1:placename> <st1:placename w:st="on">Methodist</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Church</st1:placetype></st1:place> was the site of the first celebration of Father’s Day in 1908. The prayers were in honor of the fathers who died. The day was observed in different places at different times. It became official when President Richard Nixon proclaimed it a national holiday in 1972; the day fixed was the third Sunday in June.</div>
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Many years later, when I lived in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Chicago</st1:place></st1:city>, my first daughter was born. To mark the occasion, my mother gave us a plaque, which said “You should give your children roots and wings.” Four years later, my younger one showed up on a snowy, cold December afternoon. With two children competing for attention and resources, I became aware of the role of the father.</div>
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Fast forward to Father’s Day 2007: my younger daughter, a resident New “Yawker,” took me to McSorley’s, the oldest pub, on the buzzing <st1:place w:st="on">Lower East Side</st1:place>, where she lives, to quaff a few beers with her friends. She is focused on making a life for herself in “this city that never sleeps;” she works hard and when she has the free time, she and her friends make the most of “New York, New York;” as Frank Sinatra sang, “If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere…it’s up to you…”</div>
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My older one is the take-charge type, who can fix anything from an insurance policy to an airline ticket; from a major PowerPoint presentation to pointed research. The venue for her achievements is <st1:city w:st="on">Delhi</st1:city>; she enjoys her free time with her friends from all over the world who happen to live in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Delhi</st1:place></st1:city>. She travels the world with an easy sophistication that I never knew. Fathers should be so lucky, as I have been with both my daughters, who are happy to share their lives with me.</div>
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My older daughter’s roots and my younger one’s wings are a perfect foil for my mother’s advice. They both make their way in the world. They are off and running: one protecting the roots, the other projecting the wings. Yet there is a disturbing arrhythmia in my mind. My thoughts go back to the vacations we shared together and I hope we can do it again and again as we did for many years in Goa, in Europe and in the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">United States</st1:place></st1:country-region>. The sadness comes from knowing such togetherness will become less frequent in the years to come.</div>
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These sentiments are a luxury that today’s fathers enjoy. When I was growing up, fathers were remote persons. Whether liberal or conservative, they just did not get involved in their children’s lives. The authoritarian ones ran their children’s lives according to their worldview; the more liberal ones simply accepted things. If they couldn’t control their children or satisfy them with material or ideological baubles, they pulled back and became even more distant. </div>
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Father’s Day is when children honor and indulge their father. I’m a sucker for the syrupy sentimentality that goes with it. For me, it has always been a pause; a chance to remember the wonderful times growing up with my children; to recognize that the relationship with them is always ambiguous. You love them, let them be and hope for nothing in return. Most times, you experience pure joy; other times, there may be sheer aggravation. That’s unconditional love. Underlying it is a bittersweet taste: as fathers we tried to move heaven and earth to smooth things for our children when they were dependent on us. The haunting question is: will they still need me when I’m 64? </div>
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On a brighter note, some day I will have grandchildren on my knee.</div>
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<o:p>from daily news and analysis, june 27 2007</o:p></div>
Rajiv N Desaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04886761100825959265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7537489380457243489.post-25974997134661842922018-07-18T08:58:00.004+05:302018-07-18T08:58:30.762+05:30Victory in Vienna<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<link href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5CRD%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtml1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml" rel="File-List"></link><o:smarttagtype name="country-region" namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"></o:smarttagtype><o:smarttagtype name="City" namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"></o:smarttagtype><o:smarttagtype name="place" namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"></o:smarttagtype><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><img src="https://img1.blogblog.com/img/video_object.png" style="background-color: #b2b2b2; " class="BLOGGER-object-element tr_noresize tr_placeholder" id="ieooui" data-original-id="ieooui" /> <style> st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } </style> <![endif]--><style> <!-- /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:14.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} </style> </div>
--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--><span style="font-style: italic;">Strengthening the Rule of Law</span> <div class="MsoNormal" style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;">
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On September 6, 2008 the Vienna-based Nuclear Suppliers Group, a consortium of 45 countries that seeks to control international trade in nuclear materials, technology and equipment, issued a “clean waiver” that exempted <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region> from its own denial regime. The effort was spearheaded by the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">United States</st1:country-region></st1:place> government and supported by most of the original seven members of the NSG. </div>
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Where the global community rose to admirable heights to transcend its domestic political concerns, in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region>, the saffron and red opponents of the deal plumbed new depths of chicanery. Instead of closing ranks with the government, they dug in their heels and refused to acknowledge the importance of the NSG waiver and the potential it offers to transform India’s relationship with and standing in the global mainstream.</div>
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The intemperate response from the two opposition parties betrayed a poor understanding of the nature of democracy. The government won a confidence vote in Parliament, signaling it had majority political support for the deal; it went on to get its safeguards plan approved by the International Atomic Energy Agency and then finally won the confidence of NSG with its assertion that it was against proliferation and a nuclear arms race. </div>
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Having tried every trick in the book to stall the deal, the opposition simply failed. They must acknowledge that government won both domestic and international political support. Now it’s time, as opponents do in a democracy, to shake hands and present a united face to the world. </div>
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Never mind what happens in specific sectors, the Indo-US deal is a strategic move that will help transform the <i>chalta hai</i> economy. We will engage in a big way as a mature power with the big boys and therefore learn that we must take ourselves seriously. We cannot say one thing and do something else. In that sense, the Indo-US agreement takes Manmohan Singh’s reforms of 1991 to a new level. We will have to play by the rules and not hide behind political barriers as we have done at <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Doha</st1:city></st1:place> in the WTO.</div>
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<o:p><br /></o:p>As it turns out, the business sector is already at it. For all the companies they have bought overseas and for all the foreign investment they have attracted, business leaders have understood the seriousness of contracts, intellectual property rights and the need for professional management. As such they have been the vanguard. The Indo-US deal simply ensures that government will follow with accountability and transparency. <br />
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The only hurdles that remain are the opposition parties. The Left is an ideological dinosaur that opposes the deal because of its irrational anti-American mindset and, as it now has become clear, it is <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">China</st1:country-region></st1:place>’s cat paw. They have been consigned, as elsewhere, to the dustbin of history. In the end, the <st1:city w:st="on">Vienna</st1:city> waiver included the Soviet Union and <st1:country-region w:st="on">China</st1:country-region> as well as the self righteous little countries like <st1:country-region w:st="on">Switzerland</st1:country-region>, <st1:country-region w:st="on">Austria</st1:country-region>, <st1:country-region w:st="on">New Zealand</st1:country-region> and <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Ireland</st1:country-region></st1:place>. </div>
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When it comes to the BJP’s protests, we should remember that the whole idea of the NSG waiver was to allow <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">India</st1:country-region></st1:place> the opportunity to do civilian nuclear commerce with the world. There is nothing in the agreement that talks about nuclear tests. The fact is the UPA government got the waiver in spite of the BJP’s ill-advised 1998 nuclear tests. The NSG waiver is a palliative against the hostile international reaction to the 1998 episode. We can test but we must be prepared for the global reaction. On the other hand, this government is much more mature than the insecure regimes of Indira Gandhi in 1974 and Atal Behari Vajpayee in 1998.</div>
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If you analyze it further, the BJP’s 1998 tests provoked a tit-for-tat reaction from <st1:country-region w:st="on">Pakistan</st1:country-region> and as such, nullified the huge conventional military and economic superiority that <st1:country-region w:st="on">India</st1:country-region> had vis-à-vis <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Islamabad</st1:place></st1:city>. The Indo-US deal restores that advantage for <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region>. The covert support that <st1:country-region w:st="on">China</st1:country-region> provided for <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Pakistan</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s nuclear program is well known. <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Islamabad</st1:place></st1:city> remains a pariah, especially given the private A Q Khan network of nuclear proliferation.</div>
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It is no wonder that the Left opposed the deal tooth and nail. When it became clear that Karat and company failed, their Chinese patrons resorted to subterfuge in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Vienna</st1:place></st1:city> and when all was lost, absented themselves from the final session of the NSG.</div>
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A major learning from the <st1:city w:st="on">Vienna</st1:city> consensus is that the Chinese could not stand up to the force of the world’s great powers, the <st1:country-region w:st="on">US</st1:country-region>, <st1:country-region w:st="on">Russia</st1:country-region>, <st1:country-region w:st="on">France</st1:country-region>, <st1:country-region w:st="on">Britain</st1:country-region> and <st1:country-region w:st="on">Germany</st1:country-region> and failed to scuttle the deal in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Vienna</st1:place></st1:city>. That should be a sobering thought for the Left. As for the BJP, their loud protest that the government has sold out <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s strategic interest has simply drawn derision and disbelief. Instead of projecting itself as a viable right-of-center alternative to the Congress, the BJP has succeeded in showing itself up as an immature loser.</div>
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That’s all history now, though champions of the infantile Left and the immature BJP in the media and in the academy are still yelling and screaming. The deal is done. <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region> can look forward to the fruits and the obligations of being accepted into the global mainstream. The rule of law will be strengthened. And if the saffron and red opposition acknowledge defeat and draw the right lessons, democratic traditions could also be strengthened.</div>
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Rajiv N Desaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04886761100825959265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7537489380457243489.post-76292933276129742702018-07-18T08:56:00.000+05:302018-07-18T08:56:16.795+05:30The Acrid Stench of Death<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Grief Eases, the Smell Lingers</span><br />
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On September 21, my mother would have turned 86. She died five months ago. But lest anyone thinks this another obituary, I want to make it perfectly clear that it is not. Rather I want to talk about the phenomenon of death.<br />
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To begin with, there’s no escaping it. We are all on some supernatural death row from the minute we are born. Certainly, we give our lives meaning. We have childhood, adolescence, youth, middle age and old age. We do amazing things: we build nations, machines, welfare systems, philanthropic organizations; we do astounding research in medicine, physics, chemistry; we sing songs, play guitar and make it snappy; we write symphonies and operas, novels, poetry, even columns like this one. It is our only shot at immortality. Buried, burned or otherwise disposed off, our mortal coil is just that: mortal. Remember the root of the word is Latin for death.<br />
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It’s not my intent to be a Woody Allen and obsess about death. We don’t need that because the fear of death is programmed into our DNA. We eat healthy, we work out, and we give up cigarettes, booze and the libertine lifestyle. All in the hope we get a few years more on this planet. That desire drives people who live in sylvan estates or in deplorable slums; the investment banker who lives on 95<sup>th</sup> and Fifth in Manhattan as well the tribal in basic Africa; the person on a luxury yacht in the Mediterranean or the desperate immigrant stowing away on a cargo ship.<br />
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Nobody told me the only certainty in life is death for all the years I spent is respectable educational institutions. Everything was a mumbo-jumbo in equal parts religion and superstition. In school, we accepted an unstated belief in God advocated by the Jesuits; university life was guided by the Calvinist belief in the salvation of hard work, burning the midnight oil. After that, a job was the Holy Grail. You had find one, keep it and rise through the ranks. Better homes, nicer cars, club memberships, five-star hotels, business-class travel and various other diversions took you mind off from the inevitability of death.<br />
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So we build the tangled web of ambition and desire to divert our minds, stuck as we are this wonderful death row called life. Be it clearly stated I am not a dark and foreboding person; quite to the contrary I have a sunny disposition best expressed in the Louis Armstrong song, <span style="font-style: italic;">What a Wonderful World</span>. Satchmo sang the song in 1967, at a time when protest rock began belting out its dark and nihilistic message. The song was written for him by the legendary jazz impresario Bob Thiele. Its opening lyrics went like this:<br />
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I see trees of green, red roses too<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">See them bloom for me and you</span><br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">And I think to myself what a wonderful world</span><br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">I see skies of blue, and clouds of white</span><br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night</span><br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">And I think to myself what a wonderful world</span><br />
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And indeed we enjoy this world: springtime in Chicago, autumn in New England, a night in Manhattan, a drive on Pacific Coast Highway from San Francisco to Los Angeles, (corny though it sounds) an evening in Paris, a drive through the English and French countryside, a Beatles song, an Ellington tune or some good old Hindi songs by Rafi, Kishore, Mukesh or Geeta Dutt; even mundane experiences like a drink at the Air Force station in Ayanagar near the Delhi-Gurgaon border, dinner with friends in Bandra, a singsong at our house with friends, a great movie, a good concert, an absorbing play, a stirring opera. And for many of us, the satisfaction of work and the concomitant rewards, both spiritual and material.<br />
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My personal preference remains <st1:place st="on">Goa</st1:place> in the Monsoon. Sure there are trees of green and blooming flowers. But the skies are grey; the clouds are black and ominous; the night is indeed sacred and dark with sheets of rain and gale force winds. Contemplating the violence of nature, I am reminded that we are mortals and we can be swept away by the sinister forces of nature.<br />
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These experiences define our lives. Otherwise there is a void, a few lonely years in a death watch cell. We seek love and solace. When we get that, we are immortal; others want more and they are Shakespeare, Blake, DaVinci, Einstein, Gaugin, Van Gogh, Mozart, Beethoven, Edison, Burke, Jefferson, Voltaire, Freud, Marx, Gates or any of the IT pioneers. People like them advance civilization. The rest of us just enjoy the fruits of their genius.<br />
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In the end, there is no greater comfort and joy than sharing a daily dinner table, a weekend lunch in the garden or Christmas with the family. These experiences run for a good 50 years or so in an individual’s life until the children ,both us and ours ,grow up and move away, sometimes physically but always emotionally. We enjoy it while we can and then contemplate the sunset years. Some of us are lucky to have friends to brighten up our evenings and weekends; and work to keep us busy through the day.<br />
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Into this cocoon of happiness that we build and protect, sometimes the reality of life creeps in. This happened when my mother died and left my father with us, Alzheimer’s and all. The grief has eased but I cannot get rid of the stench of death in my house. It is an acrid smell that no amount of Lysol, scented candles and room sprays can get rid off. It hangs in there, dismal and irreversible: a sinister prospect of what lies ahead. And in my father with his dementia, I can hear the ticking of the mortal clock.</div>
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copyright rajiv desai 2008</div>
Rajiv N Desaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04886761100825959265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7537489380457243489.post-85407136414001401392018-07-18T08:55:00.000+05:302018-07-18T08:55:24.366+05:30Goa Unplugged<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i>After All it’s Indian</i></div>
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So here we are in Ucassaim, <st1:place w:st="on">Goa</st1:place> again. It’s been raining for the past three days and now there’s bright sunshine; warm humid days, cool starry nights. And I think to myself what a wonderful world. There are high-pitched songbirds in the morning; an irritating rooster with five-o’clock-alarm regularity; peacocks romantically a-braying at the prospect of snakes. The bread guy, the egg man and every other vendor has this little rooty-tooty horn that starts blowing from five in the morning to midday.</div>
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Our little village is, as such, a bucolic place. After three days of rain and a day of sunny blue skies, you can sit in the verandah and hear the water dripping from the trees at night. You get up from your armchair and look up at the million trillion stars in the sky to see if it’s clouded over again and it’s raining. And you realize with some impeccable insight that dripping water is the main event in <st1:place w:st="on">Goa</st1:place> during the monsoon. Even after two days of sunny skies, the trees are still dripping; star-filled, moonlit nights notwithstanding, the drip-drop of the water from the trees never ceases. It is soothing, almost mesmerizing. The sound complements the sight of the starry, black-ink sky.</div>
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The wonder of this place is that is a feast of vision and sound but also of heavenly aromas of food: the overwhelming smell of feni, the acrid odor of <st1:place w:st="on">Goa</st1:place> vinegar and the lustful noseful of seafood. Apart from the hedonistic cornucopia that is the very essence of <st1:place w:st="on">Goa</st1:place>, there are other, more mundane aspects: good roads, polite drivers, great bars, good restaurants. For people like us, <st1:place w:st="on">Goa</st1:place> is a discovery…a great view, a wonderful bar, a nice restaurant. Mostly, we wander through the towns, villages and beaches during the day and eat a simple dinner at home.</div>
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We love our little village. It is bucolic. Sadly, it is full of envious neighbors. We’ve tried to reach out to them but their world is so different. The amount of money we spend going back and forth from <st1:city w:st="on">Delhi</st1:city> to <st1:place w:st="on">Goa</st1:place> in a year surpasses their annual earnings. If we were foreigners, nobody would hassle us; if we were rich, we would have people to contain them. Being neither, we face the hostility of neighbors, who are nice to talk to; it is clear they have a hidden agenda. And they operate stealthily through the Panchayat.</div>
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In our case, they cannot complain in terms of religion or caste: my wife is a Goan Catholic; I am a Hindu Brahmin. Between Pereira (my wife’s maiden name) and Desai (also a Goan name), we easily blend in, especially because we live the local life. The problems our neighbors are causing us just for having our house are petty but stressful. One neighbor is a police constable; he earns less in a year than what we spend on airline tickets. Another neighbor started an ambitious project to build an additional floor but ran out of money; a third has cattle in his living quarters and the family is always at war, using loud voices and sometimes even physical combat.</div>
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All these years, we’ve ignored them, valuing the physical allure of the village. We’ve weaved that attraction into a pastoral experience. I was hoping to write poetry like William Blake, instead I am constrained to write a Marxist tract. Now that we are sprucing up the property for our daughter’s wedding in the next few months, we’ve had people coming out of the woodwork, objecting to walls; this, that and the other. All complaints go to the Panchayat; there are inspections, without any reference to the alleged transgressor.</div>
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In the past few weeks, we’ve had all manner of neighbors complaining about our plan to rebuild the garden walls. Forget sharing the cost, which we asked them to do and they refused, pleading poverty; they are of a completely negative frame of mind. One neighbor complained that we had encroached into his property; another complained, and he lives across the street, that the wall would block the breeze in his house. A third simply said we could not do it unless we built ten feet into our property, giving him the land for free.</div>
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We come to <st1:place w:st="on">Goa</st1:place> to get away from it all. We stay at out second home, mind our own business and reach out to the locals. There is, however, such a simmering pot of envy that you can neither touch nor swallow for fear of burns. We have decided to fight it. Never mind religion or caste, the hostility has to do with socioeconomic differences. Though nowhere rich by global or even the new Indian standards, we nevertheless pay our caretaker more than the per capita income of the village…we probably spend more than that on dinner, when we go out.</div>
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That is the truth. But I see no reason why they would gang up on us, except because they believe they can wring a few thousand rupees out of us. Apart from the fact, I would not even part with a paisa, I am shocked that these people have such a skewed view of the world: the idea you can gang up to extract money from your better-off neighbor.</div>
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As my daughter says, “Man, Dad, they picked the wrong guy.” And indeed they did. My wife is from <st1:place w:st="on">Goa</st1:place> and I am Goan by choice. We will fight them to the end of time and we will win for the same reason they seek to extort money from us. We have the resources to tie the Panchayat up in litigation for the next 10 years. Our taxes are 122 rupees a year because that’s really what residents can afford. I have no qualms in using my financial clout to screw their happiness.</div>
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On the other hand, despite the pathetic real estate taxes, the village is clean; everyone manages to dispose off their garbage and there are no smelly bins of the type you find in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Delhi</st1:city></st1:place>’s villages. We know because even in the capital we live surrounded by a village that immensely wealthier and depressingly dirtier.</div>
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So there we have it. We live in this bucolic village; we spend more money in a day than the local residents do in a month. But we will not give in to the egregious demands of our neighbors, who are simply hoping to make a buck by slowing our renovation.</div>
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I told members of the Panchayat, who came to visit us, that we will support the local orphanage (imagine: in this little impoverished community, there is one). But we have no time for envious and greedy neighbors. And we refuse to let their petty concerns spoil the time we spend in our little getaway that we call “Imagine.”</div>
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copyright rajiv desai 2008</div>
Rajiv N Desaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04886761100825959265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7537489380457243489.post-5254190710993138662018-07-18T08:53:00.000+05:302018-07-18T08:53:10.712+05:30American Life<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Manhattan: Shakespeare in the Parking Lot</span><br />
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So there we stood in the parking lot at the corner of Ludlow and Broome in New York’s fabled Lower East Side watching a performance of Shake-speare’s Measure for Measure. It was a warm August evening and all the chairs were taken. Eventually we just squatted on the ground. I thought it would be some amateur effort but was pleasantly surprised at the caliber of the actors and the innovation of their production.<br />
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The play was staged by The Drilling CompaNY, an Off-Broadway troupe that proclaims it is a jazz player that endeavors “to extend the same free-dom in creation and production to theater artists that jazz extends to mu-sicians.” The play performed that evening was truly Haryanvi in its in-trigues and malafides. It got a bit uncomfortable after an hour of watching it and a Martini beckoned, so we left. It’s not like we didn’t know the end. We luxuriated in the performance, walked to a wondrous bistro: there to eat, drink and be merry with our daughter and her friend.<br />
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As we walked back to her place in Gramercy on that night in Manhattan, I couldn’t help marveling at her world of hard work and joyous play. As a twenty-something, our daughter lives this carelessly sophisticated life that is enviable. To live in Lower Manhattan, to have a good job, to have good friends, to shrug off care with awareness and compassion is a life de-voutly to be wished.<br />
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Beneath her seemingly hard Manhattan exterior, she is good for a cuddly hug and nostalgia. “I’m not ready for this scenario,” I told her: a stereo-typical situation when parents visit from the Old World and she takes care of everything. “Deal with it, Dad. This is a different America than when you lived here,” she said. Truth is both our daughters are “cool.” They get it from us because we defined “cool,” way back in the 1960s and 1970s.<br />
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Regardless, we spent a wonderful weekend with her. She had a problem because I like steak and burgers; her mother prefers exotic foods like tapas and sushi. “Ok parents, you can visit only one at a time. I can’t han-dle these different tastes,” she said as we ended up in a low-grade Italian restaurant with terrible food and brown bag wine on McDougal Street in the West Village, after much this and that.<br />
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Our first weekend in Manhattan was a revelation. Our daughter runs an enlightened home, small but neat and comfortable. We got an insight to her life, which seems to be a lot more about quality than quantity. It is so different than when we lived there in the seventies. She fits into the Man-hattan life so easily, where we had to make certain painful adjustments living in Chicago. She was born in America but grew up in Delhi; in the past six years she has lived, you’d think she’d always lived there.<br />
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And she ain’t never coming back, that’s for sure. That somewhat sad re-alization for us is tempered by the knowledge that she has a “Sholay” poster on her dining room wall. And that she went to the Independence Day parade and stood in line to have kulfi.<br />
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What a difference a generation makes!</div>
Rajiv N Desaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04886761100825959265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7537489380457243489.post-90201963963214422452018-07-18T08:51:00.000+05:302018-07-18T08:51:03.006+05:30Let’s Set the Record Straight<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Peeling the onion of political ideology in India is an assault on reason. You have rabble-rousing Hindutva hordes, which held sway from 1998 to 2004 and were booted out. Then there is the intellectually bankrupt Left that met its Waterloo on the Indo-US strategic partnership agreement. Sitting on the Opposition benches, their one-point agenda is to defeat (difficult) or cause problems (easy) for the Congress. It is a matter of wonder how closely these two so-called inimical forces, the BJP and the Left, have combined time and again to oppose the Congress for short-term political gain.</div>
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There also are 1960s-style anarchic groups that include the Anna Hazare autocratic clique and Mamata Bannerjee’s socially and intellectually challenged Trinamul Congress. Plunk into the mix the personality cults of Mayawati; the dynastic setup of Mulayam Singh Yadav, Karunanidhi and Naveen Patnaik; the slippery appeal of Jayalalitha and the holier-than-thou stance of Nitish Kumar. These are mercenary formations that will sway whichever way the wind blows, depending on the political advantage they can derive.</div>
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It is not clear what any of these groups stand for except opposition to the Congress. In 1974, the great anarch Jayaprakash Narayan talked of “total revolution” and called on the army to revolt against the Indira Gandhi government; today Hazare has subverted his fight against corruption into an anti-Congress political movement. Talk about déjà vu.</div>
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The foolishness of the Hazare band of civil society buccaneers was exposed when the moving spirit, candle-in-the-wind Arvind Kejriwal, was forced to issue a statement they are not anti-Congress. Earlier, when cornered by thinking people on a television show, Kejriwal said that India’s much-admired parliamentary democracy is a fraud. Such increasingly shrill utterances suggest he is completely out of his depth on the national stage. His natural audiences are low-level bureaucrats and politicians in the central, state and local government.</div>
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Meanwhile the BJP’s jack-in-the-box leader L K Advani led a “rath yatra” against money in Swiss banks in a none-too-subtle bid to cash in on the Hazare’s teacup storm against corruption. He is of classic RSS vintage in that he believes no one remembers his other 1990 “Ram temple” effort that left thousands dead in communal riots. So where is the “glorious” temple he promised? He served as home minister and deputy prime minister for the six years the BJP-led coalition was in power. Advani’s confusion was complete when he went to Karachi and lauded Mohammed Ali Jinnah as a secular leader.</div>
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There are many ideological fig leafs that political formations wear in their relentless grasp for power: socialism, casteism, social justice, identity, chauvinism, Hinduism. Scratch the surface and it all turns out to be an anti-Congress position. As such, political analysis in India is best conducted on a dyadic presumption: there is the Congress and there is everyone else.</div>
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So let’s look at the Congress record. It has been the default option for the electorate. In the past quarter century, it suffered seminal defeats in the elections of 1989 and 1996. In each case, it was voted of out of power on allegations of corruption. Each time, a coalition of parties was hastily put together that stood for nothing except opposition to the Congress. In both those defeats, any objective analyst could conclude the Congress lost because its governments undertook significant reforms that hurt the status quo.</div>
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In 1989, an agglomeration of forces came together to restore the status quo of inequity and discrimination that Rajiv Gandhi had challenged. The motley crew of political parties that formed the Opposition put together a makeshift government that that did not last the full term; nor did they pursue the charges of corruption that brought them to power. In the ensuing decade, the BJP’s unbridled appeal to communalism brought it to power: first, for 13 days in 1996; then in two desperate coalitions in 1998 and 1999.</div>
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The saffron dispensation lasted until 2004 and was then showed the door because of its misplaced nationalism that saw India conduct nuclear tests that were replayed tit-for-tat by Pakistan and because of its insensitive “India Shining” hype.</div>
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Since then, Congress has held sway. The key difference is the Congress’ approach to social harmony and economic development: the phrase “inclusive development” was introduced to the political vocabulary. In the interim, India, warts and all, grew to be a big player in the global dialogue; most important, economic growth was accompanied by the largest-ever reduction in poverty. Today, thanks largely to the growth of the middle class, the Indian voice is heard in world forums.</div>
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Unmindful of these achievements, the anti-Congress brigade has spread several falsehoods: the Prime Minister is opposed by Congress president Sonia Gandhi; Manmohan Singh is weak; Sonia Gandhi is the real power. </div>
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The truth is different: both Singh and Gandhi are on the same page as they have always been. There has been in the history of the Congress no better combination. The one pushes reform in foreign and economic policy; the latter is the conscience to ensure there is a local sensitivity to these reforms. That is the operational definition of “inclusive growth.”</div>
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Ironic that the anti-Congress formations should denigrate Singh and Gandhi: Singh is a highly respected economist who forsook academic achievement to serve the country first as a bureaucrat, then as finance minister and Prime Minister; Gandhi who adopted this country as her home, foreswore the office of Prime Minister in 2004 and became the conscience of the government.</div>
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<i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: small; line-height: 18px;">An edited copy of this article appeared in The Times of India on January 10, 2012.</i></div>
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<i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: small; line-height: 18px;"><b><u>Link:</u></b></i></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "georgia" , "utopia" , "palatino linotype" , "palatino" , serif; font-size: x-small;"><i>http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Default/Scripting/ArticleWin.asp?From=Archive&Source=Page&Skin=TOINEW&BaseHref=CAP/2012/01/10&PageLabel=14&EntityId=Ar01400&ViewMode=HTML </i></span></span></div>
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Rajiv N Desaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04886761100825959265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7537489380457243489.post-52768107974492120892017-12-07T12:14:00.000+05:302018-03-23T12:17:11.996+05:30Gujarat election 2017: BJP rattled, Rahul Gandhi has one-upped Modi in his backyard<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<div style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">A spurious debate about the legitimacy of <span style="color: #3366ff;"><a href="http://indiatoday.intoday.in/programme/person-of-interest-rahul-gandhi-political-legacy/1/1101964.html" target="_blank" title="Rahul Gandhi’s elevation"><span style="color: #3366ff;">Rahul
Gandhi’s elevation</span></a></span>, undoubtedly fuelled by the BJP, did not
play too well. The BJP’s star campaigner <span style="color: #3366ff;"><a href="http://indianexpress.com/article/india/rahul-gandhi-congress-president-election-congratulate-congress-on-aurangzeb-raj-pm-modi-bjp-in-valsad-4967111/" target="_blank" title="Narendra Modi sought to amplify it "><span style="color: #3366ff;">Narendra Modi sought to amplify it </span></a></span>in a
campaign speech in Gujarat. He certainly couldn’t have believed his
intervention would influence the Congress party’s choice. In any case, it did
not set the Sabarmati on fire.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Despite Modi’s futile name-calling, the issue
is finally and firmly settled. Gandhi will become president of the Indian
National Congress, the 60th person to hold the office.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Not content to have lowered the dignity of
his office by giving credence to the legitimacy debate, PM Modi made another
attempt to denigrate the election of Gandhi. In a dog whistle address seemingly
directed at his Hindutva base, he compared the elevation to the coronation of
the Mughal emperor <span style="color: #3366ff;"><a href="http://indianexpress.com/article/india/rahul-gandhi-congress-president-election-congratulate-congress-on-aurangzeb-raj-pm-modi-bjp-in-valsad-4967111/" target="_blank" title="Aurangzeb"><span style="color: #3366ff;">Aurangzeb</span></a></span>,
whose very mention is a red flag to the bigots who have and have been championed
by Modi.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">As such, Modi unwittingly reinforced the
Opposition’s charge that during his stint in power, he has never conveyed a
sense of unifying India, never once rising above the level of a BJP partisan, a
prime minister for BJP supporters.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">For some reason, Modi and the BJP find it
difficult to accept Gandhi as president of his party. Saffron loyalists may
well cast aspersions and kick up a fuss, but it’s a done deal.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Meanwhile, Gandhi has shown his ability to
lead the grand old party by running a spirited campaign in Gujarat. He sewed up
unconventional alliances with grass-roots activist movements; he delivered
powerful speeches criticising the BJP’s “development” story. He may have made a
huge impact on the BJP’s fortunes in a state where most believed victory in the
Assembly elections would be a cake walk.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">His success has the BJP rattled in its
fortress where Modi perfected his “Hindu Hriday Samrat” appeal and concocted
the story of the “Gujarat model” of development. It was this latter story that
seemed to appeal to a broader section of people than the Hindutva manifesto.
This presumably enabled the BJP to increase its <span style="color: #3366ff;"><a href="https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/news/BJPs-31-lowest-vote-share-of-any-party-to-win-majority/articleshow/35315930.cms" target="_blank" title="vote share in 2014 to 31 percent"><span style="color: #3366ff;">vote share in 2014 to 31 percent</span></a></span>, and
by virtue of the first-past-the-post system, emerge with the first-ever
absolute majority in Parliament since 1984, when Rajiv Gandhi won 400-plus
seats for the Congress.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Rahul Gandhi went hammer-and-tongs after the
Gujarat model. He accused Modi of running a “suit-boot sarkar” that only
catered to the needs of big business. Coming on the heels of the controversy
over Modi’s <span style="color: #3366ff;"><a href="https://www.dailyo.in/voices/narendra-modi-nautanki-shinzo-abe-swami-vivekananda/story/1/19538.html" target="_blank" title="penchant for luxuries"><span style="color: #3366ff;">penchant
for luxuries</span></a></span>, including prohibitively expensive
monogrammed-pinstripe suits, striking watches and designer glasses, the charge
had the impact of a right hook.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">That’s not all: in an early speech, Rahul
minced no words in a full-scope attack on Mr Modi, who spoke before him during
the winter session of Parliament in 2015:</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">“...while I listened to the Prime Minister’s
speech I could see how profoundly we differ in our thinking. For Modiji, the
people he mentioned (Gandhi, Patel, Ambedkar, Prasad, even Nehru) were
intellectual heroes to be worshipped and placed on a pedestal. They had all the
answers to India’s problems.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">“For me what was heroic about the people he
mentioned was their ability to listen to the people of this country. They are
my heroes not because they had all the answers but because they had the
humility to ask the right questions… to listen to what India was saying. They
allowed India to speak.”</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">During the Gujarat campaign, he picked up on
this theme to scoff at Modi’s “Mann ki Baat” radio addresses. He said he wasn’t
here to tell people what he thinks but to listen to what they have to say.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">In the event, he managed to strike a chord
with diverse audiences: youth, women, backward castes, tribals, dalits,
students, parents, professionals, traders and merchants. He talked about the
need to offer, in addition to private options, government alternatives in
healthcare and education. His message clearly resonated with audiences whether
delivered in a speech or in townhall-style interactions.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Gandhi hit out at demonetisation as a cunning
attempt to help cronies launder black money, calling it a “fair and lovely”
scheme. He excoriated the government’s <span style="color: #3366ff;"><a href="http://www.deccanchronicle.com/nation/politics/071217/agriculture-hit-by-gabbar-singh-rahul-jibes-at-pm-modi-over-farmers-plight.html" target="_blank" title="messed up GST scheme"><span style="color: #3366ff;">messed
up GST scheme</span></a></span>, calling it “Gabbar Singh Tax”; he offered
examples of misplaced priorities saying the Rs 33,000-crore subsidy for the
Tata Nano plant was the amount the UPA government had spent in an entire year
of the national employment guarantee scheme that gave hundreds of thousands
jobs and changed their lives forever. “How many Nanos have you seen?” he thundered.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Gandhi’s earnest exertions in Gujarat seem to
be paying off. A <span style="color: #3366ff;"><a href="http://www.thehindu.com/elections/gujarat-2017/it-may-be-a-photo-finish-for-bjp-congress-survey/article21261571.ece" target="_blank" title="recent survey"><span style="color: #3366ff;">recent survey</span></a></span>
has the Congress running neck-and-neck with the BJP. This was simply
unthinkable a few weeks ago. The Modi-Shah duo was presumed unbeatable in their
home state.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Now the game’s been thrown wide open and the
Congress is in with a better-than-even chance in next week’s election. Almost
as if in recognition of the effort, the Congress party nominated him president</span>.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">(<span style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;">This
article appeared in Dailyo.in, December 7, 2017</span>)</span></span> </div>
</div>
Rajiv N Desaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04886761100825959265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7537489380457243489.post-24788151508179141262017-11-29T11:19:00.000+05:302018-07-18T08:47:50.656+05:30BJP’s incessant assault on the Constitution<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<![endif]--><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span></span><br />
<div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Liberal opinion believes the BJP, because
of its RSS parentage, has never really accepted the constitution as the final
arbiter of public affairs. In the first place, M S Golwalkar, supreme leader of
the RSS, was dismissive as is evident from the following excerpt from his 1966
book, <em style="box-sizing: border-box; max-width: 100%;">Bunch of Thoughts</em>:</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span></span><br />
<div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span></span><br />
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; max-width: 100%; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“Our Constitution…is just a
cumbersome and heterogeneous piecing together of various articles from various
Constitutions of Western countries. It has absolutely nothing, which can be
called our own. Is there a single word of reference in its guiding principles
as to what our national mission is and what our keynote in life is? No! Some
lame principles from the United Nations Charter…and some features from the
American and British Constitutions have been just brought together in a mere
hotchpotch.”</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span></span><br />
<div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span></span><br />
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; max-width: 100%; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">No surprise then that members
of the BJP, notably Narendra Modi and Amit Shah, have paid scant attention to
constitutional norms. They have pointedly challenged the secular nature of the
Republic. Their relationship with the constitution is casual at best; indeed, there
are several other instances of overt defiance of its provisions, having to do
with the right to life, freedom of speech, due process, among others.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span></span><br />
<div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span></span><br />
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; max-width: 100%; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Most egregious is the cloud
hanging over the winter session of Parliament. Challenged by a likely anti-incumbency
backlash, Mr Modi and his lackeys in Gujarat winked at the Election
Commission’s delay in announcing the Gujarat elections. This prompted the
Congress Party’s P Chidambaram to quip: “EC has authorized PM to announce date
of Gujarat elections at his last rally (and please keep EC informed).”</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span></span><br />
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; max-width: 100%; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Suspense over the winter
Parliament session stems from the apprehension the outcome of the election may
not be in the BJP’s favor. For similar reasons, its campaign managers felt the
need to delay the model code of conduct so they could announce sops plus try to
polarize the electorate along religious lines.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span></span><br />
<div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span></span><br />
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; max-width: 100%; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Instituted with the agreement
of all political parties, the code pertains to the conduct of parties and
candidates once the dates of an election have been announced. The primary
objective of the code is to place curbs on communal appeals and corrupt
practices.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span></span><br />
<div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span></span><br />
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; max-width: 100%; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Right on cue, the party
campaign rained sops on the state, unfazed by considerations of constitutional
propriety. More worrying, the Election Commission, under pressure from an
activist’s widely publicized complaint, ordered a <a href="http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/gujarat-communal-video-election-commission-orders-probe-on-activists-complaint/1/1092680.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; max-width: 100%;"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none;">probe</span></a> into a
blatantly communal campaign video doing the rounds of social media. Whatever
the findings of this inquiry, the very fact a communal message like this is
circulated reaffirms the scant respect the BJP and its ecosystem of hatemongers
have for the constitution.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span></span><br />
<div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span></span><br />
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; max-width: 100%; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Earlier, the BJP got egg all
over its face when the Election Commission disallowed a campaign commercial it
proposed to release in the mainstream media. The script featured a central
character whose name was a derogatory term the BJP’s vast trolling machine used
to describe Rahul Gandhi.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span></span><br />
<div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span></span><br />
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; max-width: 100%; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Another widely-discussed issue
is the single-minded proclivity of this regime is to manage the headlines. In
the event, the media generally ignore news or shout down opinions that are
detrimental to the regime and play up those stories and viewpoints that
advocate their perspective. This tendency was highlighted by Rahul Gandhi in a
town-hall style interaction with the Congress Party’s social media team in
Gujarat. “Journalists report the truth,” he said, gesturing
appreciatively at the media representatives present. “But Narendra Modi and
Amit Shah fine-tune it in cahoots with the media owners,” he added, amid
applause.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span></span><br />
<div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span></span><br />
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; max-width: 100%; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It is apparent that the BJP’s
“one-man band” and “two-man army” don’t understand or disregard the
implications of their actions on freedom of speech that is guaranteed by the
constitution. This is now no longer being discussed sotto voce. People are
coming right out and saying it in mainstream as well as in social media that
the Modi regime has sought to place curbs on press freedom through intimidation
and persuasion.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span></span><br />
<div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span></span><br />
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; max-width: 100%; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Now, things are beginning to
boil over and in the whoosh of a backwash, the saffron regime risks being
knocked over by the strong current of disaffection. Its cavalier disregard for
the constitution could cost it dearly in Gujarat and later on, all over India.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span></span><br />
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; max-width: 100%; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Incredibly, Modi and his
minions continue their unrelenting propaganda bringing to bear “endorsements”
for the government’s proven disastrous economic policy from the World Bank,
Moody’s Investors Service and for Modi’s rapidly declining popularity from Pew
Research Center. Among other endorsements sought seems to have been a statement
by an obscure American author, who hailed Modi as the only world leader to
stand up to China.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span></span><br />
<div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span></span><br />
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; max-width: 100%; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">How it will all pan out in Gujarat
is a matter of fevered speculation with mainstream media plumping for Modi and
the BJP. However, disillusionment is growing, with experts and
commentators openly deriding Modi’s penchant to lure the electorate with lofty
promises backed by a steady undercurrent of dog whistles to the communal base.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span></span></div>
Rajiv N Desaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04886761100825959265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7537489380457243489.post-63406689518649883582017-11-15T13:01:00.000+05:302018-07-18T08:48:20.278+05:30Saffron Sleaze by the Sabarmati<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN-IN">Talk
about up the creek without a paddle. The BJP is in a blue funk in Gujarat. It
has come unhinged by the successful Congress campaign that has sealed a de
facto alliance with the Patidars, the Dalits, OBCs, the working class, and
farmers. Then there is the corruption factor involving Jay Shah, son of Amit
Shah, and also Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani, who has been fined by the
Securities and Exchange Board of India for manipulative (fraudulent and unfair)
trading on the stock market.</span></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN-IN">Like
the “vikas” it touts, the entire saffron gang seems to have gone crazy. The
Congress has disparaged the “Gujarat model” as one built on wacky priorities.
To understand just how puerile this “vikas” is, you need to visit the soul-less
Sabarmati riverfront: miles of sterile walkways and patches of lawns on concrete
blocks stacked on its banks while the river bed copes with stagnant water
channelled from the Narmada Dam. </span></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN-IN">T<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"></a>he BJP seems totally flummoxed as its mother lode slips from
its grasp. What to do, what to do, what, what…as Manna Dey sang for Mehmood in the
rip-off song “</span><a href="https://youtu.be/uKE_JURJvDo"><span lang="EN-IN">Aao twist kare</span></a><span lang="EN-IN">” from the B-grade film, Bhoot Bangla. But at
least Mehmood did the twist with some amount of grace. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN-IN">By
contrast, the saffron party is all jerks and twitches as it seeks a response to
the maelstrom of bad news. Sources say it turned to the huge dirty tricks machine
Amit Shah built during his stint as home minister. This is the notorious
network he used to </span><a href="http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/N9UIXohZf8ji2ipb52UPPK/The-Gujarat-model-of-stalking.html"><span lang="EN-IN">stalk</span></a><span lang="EN-IN"> a young female architect for his “saheb.” It
is reflective of the sleazy reputation that has haunted Shah and even put him
in jail for his involvement in the Ishrat Jahan </span><a href="http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/Ishrat-Jahan-killing-also-a-fake-encounter-probe-report/article16879866.ece"><span lang="EN-IN">fake encounter</span></a><span lang="EN-IN">. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN-IN">Result:
a “sex CD” that purportedly features Patidar leader Hardik Patel in a hotel
room with a woman.</span></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN-IN">What
the BJP geniuses utterly failed to comprehend is that Patel is single and young,
and in his own words, not impotent. He can have sex with whomever he likes;
there’s no law against it. It is not an issue at all. Nevertheless, an incensed
Patel has gone to town, denying it is him on the disk and taking the fight to
the BJP camp, saying things were happening just as he had </span><a href="https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/just-as-he-predicted-a-sex-cd-of-hardik-patel-arrives-to-discredit-him-1774914"><span lang="EN-IN">predicted</span></a><span lang="EN-IN">.</span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN-IN">To
add to the BJP’s woes, another </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQNJMFqWlR4"><span lang="EN-IN">video</span></a> <span lang="EN-IN">went viral; in it, the man who leaked the “sex CD” is
shown in the company of BJP Gujarat general secretary, Mansukh Mandaviya, who
is a minister in the Modi government. The obvious conclusion to be drawn is
that the BJP is behind the sleaze.</span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN-IN">Clearly,
the hullabaloo is much ado about nothing. Patel’s personal life is his own
business. The circulation of the “sex CD” is a violation of his privacy. He
would be well within his rights to sue the man who leaked the CD for defamation;
then in public meetings going forward, he would be fully justified to link him loudly
to Mandaviya, the BJP minister.</span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN-IN">This
sorry episode is evidence the BJP leadership, in Gujarat as well as at the
center, lacks maturity when it comes to dealing with adversity. Faced with a
possible setback, the amateurish bunch that runs the party seems to have lost
mental balance. </span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN-IN">It
is a measure of the party’s intellectual bankruptcy that when the second video
was circulated, the implicated minister made a disingenuous attempt to distance
the party, saying it is “unfair” to drag the BJP into the controversy. But of
course nobody believes this.</span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN-IN">In
fact, Rahul Gandhi, Alpesh Thakore and Jignesh Mevani have all backed Patel and
charged the BJP with “playing dirty politics.” So the essential objective of
the “sex CD” has not been achieved: the four leaders have remained united, more
determined than ever to uproot the BJP in its bastion. </span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN-IN">Gandhi
took the battle straight to the saffron crew, saying it was trying to suppress
the voice of the Patidars while Dalit leader Mevani </span><a href="http://www.timesnownews.com/india/article/hardik-patel-sex-tape-jignesh-mevani-gujarat-dalit-leader-patel-patidar-paas-bjp/125145"><span lang="EN-IN">said</span></a><span lang="EN-IN"> sex is a fundamental right. Meanwhile, OBC
leader Thakore asserted that the fake CD would not save the BJP in Gujarat.</span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN-IN">This
show of solidarity by its four adversaries has made the BJP look foolish and
inept, completely incapable of handling its own affairs, leave alone affairs of
state. In its effort to discredit Patel, it has egg on its face. </span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN-IN">Game,
set and match to the vigorous foursome.</span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><span lang="EN-IN">Post
Script 1</span></i><span lang="EN-IN">: Not
content at being shown up to be infantile, the Gujarat BJP seems to have purveyed
</span><a href="http://www.timesnownews.com/india/article/hardik-patel-sex-video-drinking-woman-gujarat-assembly-election-2017-patidar-patel-reservation/125463"><span lang="EN-IN">another video</span></a> <span lang="EN-IN">showing Patel “drinking” with
friends including a woman. In it, Patel is depicted with a shaven head. The
idea behind that is incredibly stupid; the producer sought to defame Patel in
the dry state and also to answer his charge that the first “sex CD” was a fake
because at the time it was made, he had shaved his head to protest a Modi visit
to Gujarat. </span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><span lang="EN-IN">Post
Script 2</span></i><span lang="EN-IN">: In the
ultimate denouement of its clumsy crisis management, the BJP has appealed an
Election Commission decision to disallow the use of character called Pappu in a
campaign commercial. Hoping to gain some public sympathy, the party mindlessly leaked
the story to a television channel so it featured on a prime time </span><a href="http://www.timesnownews.com/india-upfront/video/is-the-bjp-gujarat-poll-ad-mentioning-the-word-pappu-playful-or-personal/125630"><span lang="EN-IN">debate</span></a><span lang="EN-IN">. Oops!</span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
Rajiv N Desaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04886761100825959265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7537489380457243489.post-73730503058807782502017-11-07T12:35:00.000+05:302017-11-15T15:34:55.054+05:30The ideology and politics of victimhood<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Since Independence, Indians have been
seduced by the ideology of victimhood, best summed up in the worst song ever
produced by the Hindi film industry: duniya mein hum aayein hai to jeena hi
padega, jeevan hai agar zeher to peena hi padega. (‘Having come into this
world, we must learn to live life. If life is poison, we must learn to drink
it’)</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">My first brush with it was when I was a
small boy, listening to my grandmother (only half-joking) lament the woes of
the Indian cricket team (pathetic in those days). Her take was that consumption
of meat by foreign teams placed them way above Indians. Actually, it was much
like the experience of the young Mohandas Gandhi, who came to believe, for the
same reasons, in the superiority of his Muslim friend.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The widely-trumpeted Indian proclivity
for vegetarianism is the foundation of the victim story. It persists to this
day under the BJP government, which continues to condone mob violence against
the meat-eating population, purportedly in the cause of cow protection. It’s
the type of dog-whistle politics that has become the hallmark of public affairs
in India.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">But let’s not digress. Without going too
far down the highways of history, it’s clear that for nearly two centuries,
India was a victim of British colonialism. The majority of the population
tamely accepted it as the yoke of fate. But the more progressive minded made
the best of the situation: they took to British education, the English
language, the professions including law and medicine. From them, as Macaulay
had predicted in his famous minute, arose “a class of persons Indian in blood
and colour, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and in
intellect”. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">While Macaulay found no favour with the
political class in India, the fact remains that it was from this class of
people that arose first the Home Rule, and later the freedom movement. The
Indian nationalist movement broke the back of British colonialism in India with
its innovative protests and charismatic leaders. No victim mindset here but
instead, a confident assertion of a people determined to wrest freedom from
foreign rule. Its success spawned copycat freedom movements around the colonial
world and spelled the end of European manifest destiny: the white man’s burden,
control over the non-white world.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Away from the heady sweep of India’s
independence movement, proponents of victimhood nevertheless lurked in dark
corners — grim and dour men steeped in caste and religious bigotry. These Hindu
fundamentalists took no part in the struggle against colonial rule. Instead,
they supported the British colonial government against the nationalists, afraid
of their confident vision and inclusive prescriptions. Not for them the secular
ways of the freedom fighters.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">In the event, the nationalists fired the
imagination of the Indian masses and the British were vanquished. But not
before they played their last card of skullduggery: some diehards in the
British government of India actively encouraged rivalry between the Indian
National Congress and the Muslim League, hoping to delay the inevitable so they
could enjoy the plush life of colonialists a little longer. This rivalry
festered and led to a grisly aftermath. The Partition of British India into
India and Pakistan had no precedent; the scale of dislocation and violence was
pure evil. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">But it gave hope to unreconstructed Hindu
fundamentalists harbouring deep hatred for nationalists. As such, they chose to
back the colonial diehards who widened the chasm of religious division in
India. The legacy of Partition was a pernicious animosity between Hindus and
Muslims. This suited the bigots and fed their dark vision of victimhood.
Opportunists as ever, they launched a whisper campaign among the victims of the
India-Pakistan divide, pointing fingers at the secular nationalists as the
cause of their tragedy and suffering. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">As India blossomed into a democratic
republic, the Hindu victim movement kept religious hatred alive. Every now and
then, it would boil over into what came to be called communal violence, when
actually it was instigated mayhem. Over the years, the men behind communal
violence realised it could be used to build a political constituency. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The rest, as they say, is history. Today,
the Hindu fundamentalists rule over India with a brute majority. They tolerate
no dissent. They are flush with funds. They are seemingly unstoppable. Even so,
they haven’t been able to exorcise the demons of victimhood. They still point
to the diminished secular forces and hold it responsible for their inability to
govern. They continue to feel embattled, especially now that things seem to be
slipping out of control. Their narrative: for 70 years, we’ve been victims of
this pseudo-secular movement that still exercises a grip over the public
imagination; we won’t rest until India is wiped free of the influence of the
secular liberal intelligentsia.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">These victim victors still rail against
the three ‘M’s’: Marxists, Muslims and Macaulayites. While they have managed to
subdue the first two, they still have their hands full with Macaulay’s
children, uncompromising liberals who have no time for what Jean-Francois Revel
called “Marx or Jesus”.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">(<span style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;">This
article appeared in Education World, November 7, 2017</span>)</span></span></div>
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Rajiv N Desaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04886761100825959265noreply@blogger.com1New Delhi, Delhi, India28.6139391 77.20902120000005228.3907261 76.886297700000057 28.8371521 77.531744700000047tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7537489380457243489.post-78759088310501485522017-07-13T10:01:00.000+05:302017-11-15T15:36:03.464+05:30Who is Amit Shah to hold public meeting at Goa airport?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">In 70 years, there has never been an
incident quite like BJP president Amit Shah’s party conference in the terminal
at Goa’s Dabolim Airport. Presumably, Mr Shah did it with Mr Modi’s consent.
The alternative is equally worrisome; if the party leader commandeered a
high-security platform for his meeting on his own steam, the number of
questions multiplies.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Either way, the meeting at Dabolim
airport is an unprecedented event. Clearly, rules and regulations were wilfully
ignored or bent to facilitate it; worse, security was compromised. The civil
aviation ministry, the airports authority, the home ministry, the Central
Industrial Security Force, the Goa state government, the Goa police… all need
to be held accountable for the violation.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The disingenuous response by BJP’s Mauvin
Godinho, whose Dabolim constituency includes the airport, was that they had
taken “all the permissions required to host the function.” The question is
about these permissions being given at all. Today, given global terrorist
threats, airports rate the highest possible security levels; the Goa airport
doubly so because it is a military asset.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">No matter how saffron sophistry plugs it,
the fact is Mr Shah’s act is reckless, much like Mr Modi’s demonetization. He
was on a two-day visit to Goa, the welcome event could have been staged
anywhere but he chose to hold it at the airport. There could be a number of
reasons for it:</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">One, Mr Shah now thinks he is beyond
accountability, especially after he claimed responsibility for the BJP’s
much-hyped victory in Uttar Pradesh. That is a dangerous dimension of power. To
select the airport as a venue for a party meeting is to show he can do whatever
he wants. He simply has to wish it and the forces at his command will browbeat
the central bureaucracy, state governments, and the security establishment to
make it happen.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Two, Mr Shah seems to treat Goa as a
pocket borough like Gujarat. It would seem that way: since the Vajpayee days,
the BJP and its various Hindutva offshoots have chosen Goa as a venue for
significant saffron meetings. Also, according to the local grapevine, following
its failure to emerge as the single largest party in the last election, the BJP
lavished resources on the state to ensure the formation of a government.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">As such, it may have been easy for his
people to persuade the powers that his plan to hold the meeting in the
high-security airport terminal was normal.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Three, if Mr Shah decided to do this on
his own, without consulting anyone in the government, especially the prime
minister, then the act is a flagrant abuse of power. He has no locus standi to
direct government agencies; leave alone command them to transgress rules and
regulations. There is no provision in the Representation of People Act of 1951
or its many amendments that extends such powers to the head of a political
party.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Four, if Mr Shah did get an okay from the
prime minister, then the questions extend to both. The thinking on display is
that electoral victory determines the freedom to act without let or hindrance.
It would appear they simply do not feel bound by the dos and don’ts of the
constitution. Seen in conjunction with the fact that both are products of the
RSS, a cultish organization that explicitly refuses to acknowledge the Indian
constitution, Mr Shah’s airport meeting becomes even more questionable.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">One of the most disconcerting aspects of
the ascent of Mr Modi on a 31 per cent mandate is his clear signal that India
is now a Hindu rashtra in place of the secular nation envisioned in the
constitution. Worse, all those who abide by the notion of an inclusive republic
are dismissed out of hand, either as weak-kneed liberals or wild-eyed radicals.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Meanwhile, the prime minister and the BJP
president have simply ignored instances of violent bigotry that are evident
with increasing frequency. Beyond that, Mr Shah revived dog-whistle politics in
a recent campaign speech in Gujarat, referring to Muslims as
“alia-malia-jamalia.” The phrase was first used by Mr Modi during his
communally-surcharged election campaign following the Godhra train burning
incident.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Especially since the UP victory, the
general assessment seems to be that under the Modi-Shah duo, the BJP will win
the next general election in 2019. The RSS and the browbeaten and servile media
have pushed that line as an inevitable outcome. But this assumes that the 69
percent of voters who did not vote for the BJP plus millions of citizens not on
the electoral rolls will simply watch as cunning bigotry helps the BJP
steamroller its way to a victory.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Actually, the recent hue and cry about Mr
Shah’s Goa airport meeting shows that the duo may have misread the extent of
their support, surrounded as they are by yes men and pliant media.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The Goa airport meeting may well have
been the last straw. It comes in the wake of the #notinmynameprotests that have
spread across the country. For the first time, we have seen a galvanized
opposition in Goa besiege the airport director, who negated the BJP claim they
had requisite permissions to stage the meetings.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">An activist high court lawyer has upped
the ante by taking his complaint to the high court. A television news channel
known for its aggressive advocacy of the government featured the meeting on its
broadcast.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Meanwhile, the Goa bench of the Bombay
High Court has issued notices to senior officials in the central government,
state government as well as the central industrial security force and asked
them to provide a written explanation in three weeks to the petition by Goa
lawyer Aires Rodrigues seeking a probe into the event. The BJP and its
leadership is about to be cut down to size.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #222222;">(An edited version of this
post will appear in DailyO.in, July 13, 2017.)</span></span></span></div>
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Rajiv N Desaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04886761100825959265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7537489380457243489.post-87846156025694839522017-06-13T15:29:00.000+05:302017-11-15T15:37:24.180+05:30Converting science into obscurantism<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The cult of hindutva first appeared on
the political horizon in the 1980s as a movement to build a temple in Ayodhya
where a mosque stood. Over the next decade, its leadership stoked the most
primal of mankind’s urges, religious bigotry, and helped vault its political
front, the BJP, to power in coalition with several other political parties.
Finally, in May 2014, hindutva found utterance in the formation of a majority
government headed by Narendra Modi, a self-described pracharak of the mother
organisation, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Now three years into its terms, the
government is being shown up as inept and clueless about governance. There are
many instances of its abject failures on the policy front as it tries to
promote its hindutva agenda. What follows is the story of an attempt to paint
science policy in saffron hues.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">According to a report in The Hindu, the
Modi government has directed the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research
(CSIR) “to generate half of its funds and start sending report cards to the
Centre on how each… laboratory (is) focusing its resources on developing
specific lines of inventions which would contribute to the social and economic
objectives of the Narendra Modi government for the poor and the common man”.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">For the record, CSIR was established in
1942 to fund and develop original scientific and industrial research. Starting
out as a testing and quality control unit, the organisation sadly failed to evolve
to fulfil the grandiose dreams of its votaries, and has degenerated into an
ineffectual bureaucracy that’s done what a bureaucracy does best: expanded its
turf to affiliate 40 ‘research laboratories’. Unsurprisingly, its list of
achievements in 75 years of existence is unimpressive.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">At first glance, the government’s
directive is not unconscionable. CSIR has grazed in the fields of public
funding all these years to produce very little of consequence. To that extent, the
June 2015 directive, announced at what the Hindustan Times dubbed a “chintan
shivir (think camp) for scientists” in Dehradun was welcome. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">However, nothing is uncomplicated or
untwisted in the world of hindutva champions. The optics suggested that the
Modi government wants to use the rod against CSIR and whip it into shape. In
the so-called Dehradun declaration issued at the end of the summit, The Hindu
quoted a senior official who attended the meeting as saying, “The most
worrisome aspect was representatives from Vigyan Bharati, an organisation
affiliated to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), being part of this
discussion. The idea was to ensure ‘indigenous science’ was promoted. But what
was the RSS doing in this meeting?”</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The plan seems to be to reward foot
soldiers of hindutva with jobs and lucrative projects in RSS-favoured fields,
especially research and development of ‘indigenous’ science, a thinly-veiled
nudge for cow urine pharmacology and therapy. Bypassing the ministry of science
and technology, the AYUSH ministry has taken charge of the project. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Thus, AYUSH minister of state Sripad Naik
announced in Parliament, that “CSIR through its constituent laboratories has
conducted research studies… on cow urine distillate for its anti-oxidant and
bio-enhancing properties on anti-infective and anti-cancer agents and
nutrients. Four US patents have been secured… and one pharmaceutical product
containing cow urine distillate with anti-oxidant property is available in the
market”. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">In a scathing critique of “the
government’s cow urine craze,” The Wire, a news portal, expressed concern about
the AYUSH ministry promoting obscurantism. Since November 2014 when it was
constituted, just five months after the Modi government assumed office, the
ministry began to sprout saffron wings. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Intended to serve as a knowledge and
resource centre for traditional medicine systems, it was set up in 1995 as a
department in the health ministry, the outcome of a 1993 push by Sam Pitroda to
incorporate traditional Indian systems of medicine into a holistic public
health offering. To that end, Pitroda established I-AIM (Institute for
Ayurvedic and Integrative Medicine), whose major focus was on creating a
database of medicinal plants. From there to the department of Indian systems of
medicine and homeopathy (ISMH) was a short hop. In 2003, the BJP-led government
attempted to burnish its hindutva credentials after four years of
non-performance: it transformed the department of ISMH into the AYUSH ministry.
</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Now more than a decade later, the Modi
government seems to have concluded that it needs to do more to woo the base;
hence, its focus on the cow. To marry this to its ‘development’ agenda, it
convened the chintan shivir of scientists in Dehradun. The idea seems to have
been to impart a modern touch to its obscurantism, seeking to make cow urine a
CSIR focus, an initiative that fits into its Make in India, Skill India, IT
plus IT equals IT manifesto of acronyms that are a unique feature of this
non-performing regime.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Lamentably, a commendable academic effort
to document traditional medical knowledge has been subverted by hindutva
obscurantism to a profound absurdity and object of ridicule.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">(From <b>Education World</b>, June 2017.)</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
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Rajiv N Desaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04886761100825959265noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7537489380457243489.post-32796612943618060242017-04-21T10:03:00.000+05:302017-11-15T15:39:43.868+05:30Hindutva can be a racist and neocolonial force, but not Hinduism<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Just to get the
main thesis of this article sorted out: the Hindutva advocated by the BJP
government and its ecosystems is most definitely <span style="color: #3366ff;"><a href="http://www.dailyo.in/lifestyle/hindutva-vs-hinduism-religion-sangh-india/story/1/16427.html" target="_blank" title="not"><span style="color: #3366ff;">not</span></a></span>
Hinduism. It is a network of cults that may be embarked on a 21st century
attempt to colonise India. Here’s how:</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Hindutva is a
set of beliefs and practices that can be traced to illiberal formations like
the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and its various avatars and offshoots.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">These groups
found utterance about a decade after the Indian National Congress launched the
freedom struggle. In awe of the whiteness of India’s British Raj, they chose
obsequious collaboration and stayed away from the nationalist movement.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Always denizens
of dark alleys and troubled waters, RSS supremacists were arrayed against the
Congress because it espoused secular liberal values. They reserved special
venom for Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who they saw as an appeaser of Muslims.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">In the event,
the nascent government of India banned the organisation after <span style="color: #3366ff;"><a href="http://www.dailyo.in/politics/mahatma-gandhi-rahul-gandhi-defamation-rss-nathuram-godse-narayan-apte-hindu-mahasabha-partition-1947/story/1/11856.html" target="_blank" title="Nathuram Godse"><span style="color: #3366ff;">Nathuram Godse</span></a></span>, reportedly one of its
members, was arrested, tried and hanged for the murder of Gandhi.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Since then, the
supremacists remained in the shadows, nursing their hate and plotting their
phantasmagoria of a Hindutva “rashtra”. Their biggest leap into public life was
in the revivalist Ram Janmabhoomi campaign against the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Grandiosely
termed a “movement,” the campaign was more like an expanding wave of communal
violence and found resonance in sections of the urban middle classes in India.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The revivalist
agitation also won support in the immigrant community in the United States.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">In the 1980s, a
large number of Indian community organisations were formed around the
construction of temples in various US cities.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">These groups
were an entirely new service sector comprising merchants, traders and small
businessmen to supply community needs for Indian foods, clothes, artefacts,
entertainment and various other products and services.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Comprised
largely of Gujarati and North Indian NRIs, from hourly workers to struggling
professionals and crooked businessmen, this segment of the immigrant community
found itself at loggerheads with their interlocutors in America: other lower
middle class immigrant groups and the white working class and also with blacks
because of their overt racism.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Living cheek by
jowl with the prejudice of their neighbours in the urban ghettos and in the
workplace, these groups sought comfort in the <span style="color: #3366ff;"><a href="http://www.frontline.in/cover-story/soldiers-of-the-swastika/article6756605.ece" target="_blank" title="supremacist"><span style="color: #3366ff;">supremacist</span></a></span>
cults of Hindutva.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">As such, these
working-class groups were in the forefront of a clamour for a unitary church, a
single book of worship, a uniform culture and alarmingly, they wanted to
reverse the separation of church and state.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">As a normal
Hindu person, never have I heard advocated a view that Hinduism needs to become
semiticised around a single culture, a single language, a single-minded faith
in myth and superstition, in-your-face rituals, a victim mindset. The demand
arose among ghettoised NRI groups in America and spread to opportunistic RSS
supremacists in India.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Over the years,
the saffron dispensation and its NRI fans managed to fudge the difference
between Hinduism and Hindutva. They developed fantastic theories of Aryan
descent and achievements of mythological forebears.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">As a journalist
in the US, I have personally heard life insurance salesmen, factory workers,
retail merchants, others openly assert that being of Aryan descent, they were
whiter than the whites, certainly purer because of their diet and their ability
to keep their women and children cloistered from the lascivious attractions and
impure ways of American life.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The claim about
Aryan descent of the Hindutva cults is worth exploring. So I dived into my
library to locate Ainslie T Embree’s <i>Sources of Indian Tradition</i>, a book
that was prescribed reading for my graduate course in Hinduism. An excerpt:</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">“The Aryans were
a nomadic, pastoral people, and it was probably the search for new grazing
lands for their cattle that led to their migration into India. The cow was
their main source of wealth, and scholars have speculated that this was the
basis of the later emphasis in Hinduism on the sanctity of the cow. As the
Aryan moved into India from the northwest, they fought many battles with the
original inhabitants of land, a dark-skinned people whom they contemptuously
called “dasas,” a word that later came to mean slave.”</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Members of the
various Hindutva cults have decried this as a false interpretation of the
origins of Hinduism, insisting that Aryans were native to India and not
invaders from Central Asia.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The subtext is
that they are descendants of the Indo-European (read white) races.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">However, no
respectable scholar accepts that thesis. What is abundantly evident from this
conflation of Aryans, white-skinned people and members of the Hindutva cult is
that such theories are racist to the core.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Just consider
the views of Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar, chief of the RSS until his death in
1973. He was big on issues of race and national pride. His take on the Third
Reich and Nazism is produced below verbatim:</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">"To keep up
with the purity of the race and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her
purging the country of the Semitic races — the Jews. Race pride at its highest
has been manifested here. Germany has also shown how well-nigh impossible it is
for Races and Cultures, having differences going to the root, to be assimilated
into one united whole, a good lesson for use in Hindusthan to learn and profit
by."</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">In their racist
claims to be counted as Aryans, champions of Hindutva are actually hoist by
their own petard. Their claim that Aryans are indigenous to the subcontinent
has been widely and thoroughly discredited.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">As such, their
insistence on being Aryan leaves them open to the charge that they are a racist
neocolonial force in India.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">How else can you
interpret a recent comment by Tarun Vijay, former editor of the RSS publication
<i>Panchajanya</i>?</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Vijay said in a
debate on <i>Al Jazeera</i> television: “If we were racist, why would we have
the entire south... Tamil, Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra... why do we live with
them? We have black people around us.”</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">(An edited
version of this post will appear in Dailyo.in, April 2017.)</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
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Rajiv N Desaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04886761100825959265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7537489380457243489.post-27464419835365771112017-03-17T15:47:00.000+05:302017-11-15T15:43:20.507+05:30Goa Journal: A sense of liberation<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>Tainted Congress is Turfed Out.</i></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Driving in from the airport on the day of
the election results, we passed caravans of pick-up trucks, cars, scooters and
motorcycles. Draped in BJP colors, the caravans were celebrating the clear
victory of the BJP in the recently-concluded Assembly elections. As they
whizzed past towns and villages, people gathered on the edges of the highway,
cheering them on. Like Woodstock, it appeared to me “everywhere there was song
and celebration.”</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I was struck by the sense of liberation
that was palpable on the streets and squares. It was as if a dictator had been
felled. “Sir, we are free from the corrupt Congress raj,” the owner of a shack
on Morjim Beach told me as we walked in the next morning to laze a few hours away,
swimming in the blue-green Arabian Sea and savoring the shack’s basic wares:
shrimp curry and rice with fried fish and chips, washed down with fresh
pineapple juice and Goa’s own King’s beer.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">To get to this picturesque beach, you
have to drive east from our house into Mapusa and then head north through
Siolim across the bridge on the spectacular Chapora River. The drive from
Mapusa, an ugly, Indian-style market town, to Siolim is over a forested hill
with gorgeous valley views. The road is superb like most of Goan roads, except
that over the years it has become a garbage dump. Mounds of garbage line either
side of the road, detracting from the sheer natural beauty.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Even along National Highway 17, the major
artery that crosses Goa north to south en route to Kerala, you see similar
sights: piles of garbage on both sides. This odious development has come about
in the past five years. The years from 2007 have seen Goa assaulted by real
estate developers; exploited by illegal mining and stalled by crumbling
infrastructure: no waste management, acute power and water shortages, traffic
jams, eroding beaches and the growth of Bombay-style slums. Then there are
drugs, the Russian mafia and vastly increased crime.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">This has happened on the Congress watch.
Clearly, these problems were building up over the years but neglected because
of political instability. Between 1963 and 1990, there were just four chief
ministers; since then, there have been 15. In 2007, the Congress formed the
government and lasted the full term until March 3, 2012. It appeared as though
a stable government might address the mounting problems. Well, it didn’t;
what’s more, it was seen as a beneficiary of these ills. On March 3, Goans
voted with a vengeance and turfed the Congress out.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">One of the major causes of the Congress
defeat is the defection of the Christian vote. Though they form just a little
more than two percent of the Indian population; strikingly, Christians in Goa
number nearly 30 percent of the state’s inhabitants. They have traditionally
shunned the BJP because of its insular Hindutva agenda; this time they overcame
their distaste for the saffron party and voted against the Congress. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">There is euphoria in this bucolic little
corner of India. The BJP has won handily so there should be no trouble for the
next five years. Manohar Parrikar, the likable former chief minister, is set to
run Goa again. Peoples’ expectations are high; but clearly it more an
anti-Congress than a pro-BJP mandate. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Parrikar is a soft-spoken man, educated
at the exclusive Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay. I happen to know him
because he asked me to help publicize the first International Film Festival of
India (IFFI) in Goa in 2004. In the course of the project, I met him several
times and found him to be focused on outcomes. In the event, we worked together
to make the festival a success and to make Goa a permanent home for it.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">At the time, I was a member of the
Congress Media Advisory Board but that didn’t make a difference to Parrikar. He
wanted professional public relations support and so was happy to work with me
and my firm. The brief was to make it into a South Asian Cannes. The IFFI
public relations project went south after he was ousted. Subsequent Congress
governments had an opportunity to build on the national and international
notice the festival attracted. Instead, as a former senior official of the
Entertainment Society of Goa (ESG), the unit that ran the festival, told me:
“It has become a den of corruption.”</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I learned it the hard way when my firm
responded to a tender for public relations support for IFFI 2011 put out by the
ESG. We made our submission and I undertook a trip to Goa for the opening of
the bids. The entire procedure was opaque. Three bids were opened: two firms
including mine, made similar financial proposals. Within minutes, the
bureaucrat, who read out the numbers (and he looked every bit vile and
corrupt), dismissed us and awarded the project to a firm that bid
one-fourteenth of the amount that we proposed.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">This is the way Goa functioned under the
Congress. Even though I am a supporter of the GOP, I found the party’s Goa
dispensation less than transparent. I am not surprised they were booted out. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 18px;"><span style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; color: #222222;">(This
article appeared in The Times of India on March 14, 2012.</span></i>)</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 18px;"><span style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; color: #222222;">Link:</span></i><a href="http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/capital-letter/entry/goa-journal-a-sense-of-liberation">http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/capital-letter/entry/goa-journal-a-sense-of-liberation</a></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span></div>
Rajiv N Desaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04886761100825959265noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7537489380457243489.post-11557166321971955762017-03-09T10:25:00.000+05:302017-11-15T15:49:43.078+05:30Budget 2017-18: Cover-up Gimmickry<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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</xml><![endif]--><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Narendra Modi has often claimed that
elevation to the prime minister’s office in New Delhi was historic and
inevitable. Last November, he attempted to consolidate his position in Indian
history by making a pre-emptive announcement that invalidated Rs.500 and
Rs.1,000-rupee notes valued at Rs.15.44 lakh crore or 86 percent of currency in
the Indian economy. To counter the rain of criticism that greeted this diktat,
Modi and his band of propagandists fielded cheerleaders — journalists,
academicians, publicists and businessmen — to obscure and obfuscate the
absolute mayhem the arbitrary announcement caused.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>In this context, it would be instructive
to examine the consequences of demonetisation.</i></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">• It crippled informal sectors of the
economy in which most dealings are in cash. Contrary to government propaganda,
‘black money transactions’ are simple currency exchanges outside the banking
system. Reserve Bank and government of India data (2011-2015) indicate the cash
economy contributes mightily to the national economy: 45 percent of gross value
added; 40 percent of capital formation and nearly 67 percent of investible
funds.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">• A study by the Confederation of Indian
Industry (CII) estimates that prime minister Modi’s demonetisation diktat
knocked the stuffing out of the informal economy which employs more than 90
percent of the country’s workforce and generates almost 50 percent of national
income.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">• According to CIBIL, a credit rating
agency, the formal sector of the economy was also badly singed. It reported a
30 percent decline in overall credit offtake with a 60 percent nosedive in
November-December 2016. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">• CIBIL also noted that distress was
acute in rural and semi-urban areas and within the lower middle class, citing a
dramatic decline of 40 percent in loans for automotive two-wheeled vehicles.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">• Union labour ministry data indicates a
20 percent increase in demand for unemployment relief under MNREGA, the welfare
scheme for the poorest. This suggests a reverse flow of migration from city to
country.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">• In the country’s eight largest cities,
the real-estate sector reported a decline of 44 per cent in housing sales, a
16-year low.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">• The All India Manufacturers Association
which represents small and medium enterprises reported a 50 percent loss in
revenue and a 35 percent cut-back in employment.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">• According to estimates of economists at
the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, national GDP growth rate
is likely to plunge from 7.56 percent in 2015-16 to 6.1 percent in 2016-17.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Against this backdrop, the prime intent
of the Union Budget 2017-18 presented to Parliament on February 1, is a
cover-up to obfuscate the impact of demonetisation on the economy which was
already slowing since 2014. When awareness dawned that the ill-conceived hasty
demonetisation stunt would backfire, the Modi government became unhinged and
unclear about its response. The prime minister’s justification was a weird
analogy that just as surgery is best performed on a healthy patient, the
currency ban was a timely move against black money because the economy was in
good health. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The Union Budget 2017-18 therefore
betrays persistence of gimmickry: the presentation date was advanced to
circumvent Election Commission restrictions on state-specific proposals; the
railway budget was merged into the main budget and meaningless tax concessions
were announced for the organised sector. A classic example of playing to the
gallery was the scrapping of the Foreign Investment Promotion Board whose role
has already been severely circumscribed to the point that less than 20 percent
of all proposals are cleared by it.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The budget could have acknowledged that
the currency ban made it impossible to predict revenue of the next fiscal year.
It could have ignored the spending limits imposed by the Fiscal Responsibility
and Budget Management Act of 2003 to boost economic growth. The government
could have announced major cuts in indirect taxes as these levies have a
cascading impact on the economy and substantial cuts would have helped hapless
citizens whose livelihoods are threatened by the demonetisation diktat.
Instead, the finance minister played around with rejigging direct tax rates and
slabs and offered hollow concessions including tax rebates to small and medium
enterprises.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">In the final analysis, Modi’s budget
simply continues the disinformation campaign surrounding the demonetisation
bloomer. Initially, he sought to portray it as a “surgical strike” on black
money. When it became clear that it had no impact on unaccounted cash, he
billed it as a “masterstroke” against counterfeit currency and terror funding.
When that too proved inadequate, he positioned it as a strike against the rich
on behalf of the poor. When even that didn’t catch on considering the credible
“suit-boot sarkar” charge made against him by the opposition, he simply dropped
the subject. Budget 2017-18 reflects this. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
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Rajiv N Desaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04886761100825959265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7537489380457243489.post-11981191525798709942017-02-06T17:01:00.003+05:302017-11-15T15:51:05.620+05:30Mindless activism is the root of Goa’s political stasis<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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</xml><![endif]--><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #212121;">Contemplating the election
just completed in Goa, my mind wandered to a Sunday afternoon a few years ago.
At lunch in a friend’s place near Panjim, I found myself under assault by an
“activist”. He challenged my assessment that the “India against Corruption”
protest, then in full flower, was just another anti-Congress formation. My
interlocutor was the well-spoken scion of an influential Goan family and he
took umbrage at my assertion that Anna Hazare, the figure head of the protest,
was a congenital publicity hound.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #212121;">Sadly, the conversation
degenerated into a diatribe with the activist scolding me for my views on
politics, economics and society. There was not much subtlety in his charge that
people such as I must be held responsible for the state of affairs in India,
tainted as it is with political corruption, skewed economic priorities and
consumerist societal norms.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #212121;">Fast forward to 2014, post
the Hazare protest: A group of “activists” led by Arvind Kejriwal emerged to
form the Aam Aadmi Party. Kejriwal’s group did surprisingly well in the ensuing
elections to the assembly and was able to form a government with support from
the Congress. The rest is history.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #212121;">Read | </span><span style="color: #40a3d3;"><a href="http://www.hindustantimes.com/assembly-elections/goa-election-re-polling-at-one-booth-in-margao-constituency-on-tuesday/story-lhuYQW4Rvwsz6RyJj8WjJJ.html" shape="rect" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: medium none;" title="www.hindustantimes.com">Goa elections:
Re-polling at one booth in Margao constituency on Tuesday</a></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #212121;">Last year, when AAP
announced it would contest elections in Goa, which is a particularly fecund
political environment for activism, I was not surprised. All these years of
living in the haven, I was witness to the mindless activism that challenged the
long-reigning Congress on any and every development scheme or project. Bringing
to bear their networking skills and media clout, activists went hammer and
tongs after the Congress on often unsubstantiated charges of corruption. In the
event, they did not change the fluid and corrupt politics in the state or root
out corruption; they ensured the rise of the BJP.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #212121;">The entry of AAP to Goa
politics has been made possible by the cosy fit with local activists. Coasting
on word-of-mouth publicity, AAP brought to bear its propaganda skills to
project a victory in the just-completed election to the assembly. Many people,
with a foot in both places, Delhi and Goa, are understandably appalled. In
their view, Goans have regarded them with hostility as outsiders spoiling the
Goan environment with their South Delhi ways. But Goans see no contradiction in
embracing a Delhi-centric political party with roots in the rough-and-ready
exurban areas of the National Capital Region.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #212121;">This election was held
against a national backdrop in which there is a massive pushback against the
BJP and a growing disenchantment with the politics of AAP. Sensing this, the
Congress put in place ambitious revival plans. It opted for a seat-sharing arrangement
with: Two seats for Goa Forward, a year-old party pledged to defeat the BJP;
one for Atanasio Monserrate’s United Goan, a party sworn to keep the secular
vote from splitting; and it has decided to support an independent candidate.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #212121;">Read | </span><span style="color: #40a3d3;"><a href="http://www.hindustantimes.com/assembly-elections/punjab-goa-polls-done-spotlight-shifts-to-uttar-pradesh/story-Zb8VT8daBpaxUzEPHfTv6H.html" shape="rect" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: medium none;" title="www.hindustantimes.com">Punjab, Goa
polls done, spotlight shifts to Uttar Pradesh</a></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #212121;">Aside of the seat sharing
arrangement, the Congress is likely to benefit from a split in the BJP vote.
This is because of an alliance between Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party, Shiv
Sena and Goa Suraksha Manch, a new party floated by a rebel RSS member, Subhash
Velingkar, head of the influential Bharatiya Bhasha Suraksha Manch. This
Right-wing alliance, which had been instrumental in the BJP victory in 2012,
threatens to jerk the rug from under the BJP.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #212121;">The Congress sources in Goa
and Delhi say they have long believed Kejriwal’s AAP was a front floated by the
saffronistas to divide the Congress vote, especially in two-way contests as in
Punjab and Goa. Their response to the split in the BJP vote in Goa is a nudge
and a wink to suggest the Congress stands to make a huge gain because this
split will take more votes from the BJP than AAP will from the Congress.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #212121;">Though polls predict a hung
assembly, the mood in the Congress camp is upbeat.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;">(<span style="color: #222222;">An edited version of this post will appear in
http://hindustantimes.com, February 6, 2017.</span>)</span></span></span></div>
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Rajiv N Desaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04886761100825959265noreply@blogger.com100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7537489380457243489.post-50476835791862553202017-01-14T15:52:00.000+05:302017-11-15T15:52:25.427+05:30Narendra Modi: One-term PM?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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</xml><![endif]--><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #2b2b2b;">Gujarat is a small,
relatively homogeneous state. Its people are entrepreneurial, focused on
business and count their success in accumulated assets; not for them the
glamour of a corporate career or the power of a government position. To them,
government is somewhat ceremonial in the state and a complexity best avoided at
the center. They want to just get on with it, providing for their families and
future generations, with travel thrown in as a major diversion.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #2b2b2b;">The Gujarati believes that
governance with a light touch is best. For the first decade of its existence,
the state government coasted along building assets: roads, power stations,
factories, pleasant cities and not getting in the way of a thriving mercantile
culture.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #2b2b2b;">Things began to change with
the decline of the textile industry, the backbone of Gujarat’s thriving
economy. Politics began to dictate outcomes. The state was overwhelmed by civil
disturbances including large-scale religious and caste riots. This set the
stage for the populist Navnirman movement that gave way to the rabid bigotry of
the BJP.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #2b2b2b;">There are interesting
coincidences surrounding the rise of the BJP in Gujarat and emigration from the
state to the US. With the amendment of the US Immigration and Nationality Act
in 1968 to allow relative petitions leading to permanent residence (green card)
and citizenship, a veritable flood of middle-class people from Gujarat
immigrated to the US through the 1970s. By the 1980s, they had established small
businesses and begun to prosper.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #2b2b2b;">Like most Gujaratis, the US
cohort retained its insularity: not engaging with the host culture, refusing to
blend in but especially remitting savings to families back home. Most of the
money was transferred through informal channels. I can remember some people
wanting to advertise in my India Tribune newspaper offering more rupees to the
dollar and cash delivery to specified persons and addresses in Gujarat.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #2b2b2b;">As the quantum of
remittances in unreported cash grew, investible surpluses held by recipients
also grew and were ploughed into real estate projects. An array of brokers and
fixers emerged to facilitate such investments, usually by bending bylaws and
circumventing other legal inconveniences. They became the forerunners of the
BJP that came to dominate Gujarat politics, banishing the genteel idealists who
served Gujarat since its formation. In their place arose a horde of
scofflaws and bigots to grasp at political power.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #2b2b2b;">From these murky swamps
emerged a man of overwhelmingly modest intelligence but with remarkable amounts
of cunning, Narendra Modi. Starting out with the Kutch earthquake in January
2001, he successfully undermined the incumbent BJP chief minister Keshubhai
Patel. Modi used the earthquake to promote himself as a development icon. In
reality, he merely coasted on a global disaster relief effort that was mounted
in the aftermath of the earthquake.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #2b2b2b;">Right at the outset though,
his claims to have created an industrial and infrastructural miracle in Kutch
were challenged by Edward Simpson, a highly-regarded anthropologist from the
School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). In his book, <i style="box-sizing: border-box; max-width: 100%;">The Political Biography of an
Earthquake: Aftermath and Amnesia in Gujarat, India</i>, Simpson argued that
not all the changes in Kutch following the earthquake were for the better, and
that in the years following the quake, divisions between Hindus and Muslims in
Kutch widened.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #2b2b2b;">But with his headline
management skills, Modi successfully staved off questions about his role in
Kutch by focusing on the development story while stoking the communal fires. As
he vaulted to the chief minister’s position after Patel’s ouster, Modi appeared
to have crafted a winning election strategy in which the rhetoric was
development but the actual organizational play was to polarize the electorate
on an anti-Muslim platform.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #2b2b2b;">The following year, 2002,
he put it in play following the burning of the train in Godhra and asserted his
dominance on Gujarat politics and on the BJP for the next 12 years without ever
being challenged about outcomes and intent. Finally, it enabled him to vault to
the Prime Minister’s office.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #2b2b2b;">There was one crucial
difference, however. As Gujarat chief minister Modi delivered both seats in the
assembly and a large vote share. As Prime Minister, he chalked up the first
single-party parliamentary majority in three decades but with just about 31
percent of votes. And that’s where the rub lies. Nearly 70 percent of the
electorate did not vote for him. Consequently, the questions began to fly thick
and fast from virtually the moment he became Prime Minister.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #2b2b2b;">To avoid these questions,
Modi took to what Ravish Kumar, the highly regarded anchor of NDTV India,
called “eventocracy” facilitated by a “comedia.” Essentially, this meant
remaining silent until the questions became persistent and shrill and then with
the active collaboration of mainstream media, changing the subject to emotive
issues like nationalism, patriotism, terrorism and Pakistan. Or else staging
events like the BRICS summit, Madison Square Garden, Wembley or campaign
rallies in which the melodrama quotient is insufferably high with quivering
voice and tears in his eyes: “beat me first, I have taken on vested interests
that will not rest until they have killed me, give me 50 days.” Also high in
these rallies is abusive content and whataboutery in which he mocks, derides
and rails at opponents.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #2b2b2b;">Easily, the mother of all
diversionary tactics was demonetization, his draconian assault on the monetary
system. Everyone but the mainstream TV news channels could see the widespread
pain it inflicted on the average person but especially the poor and rural
populations. But Modi and his cohorts refused to acknowledge just how
vindictive and arbitrary it was. They laughed at first, saying the people lined
up in banks and at ATMs were black money hoarders. Then they changed the
subject to digital payments, cashless economy, and surgical strikes on terror
funding and counterfeit banknotes.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #2b2b2b;">But the questions still
persist. No amount of headline management and propaganda including suspect
opinion polls and feel good stories in the media can change the facts about
demonetization: it was a disastrous ploy that hurt virtually the entire
population of India; it was an ill-conceived attempt to divert attentions from
legitimate questions about the palpable lack of governance; it was a body blow
to the economy that could take years to nurse back to health.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #2b2b2b;">Clearly Modi has no answers
about the black money cornered by his November 8 announcement; he has no idea
of when a semblance of monetary stability will be restored. But he is
campaigning for the upcoming state elections as though his life depends on it,
cleverly bending the narrative to suggest he is leading a fight against black
money, never mind that he has been accused of taking payoffs from a dubious
business enterprise and is engaged in a Watergate-style cover up, using
government agencies and arbitrary transfers of inconvenient officials.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #2b2b2b;">By staging event after
event, finessing the narrative propagated by the pliant and unquestioning
media, he hopes to dodge accountability. Many believe though this time, the
impact of his idiosyncratic manoeuvre is just too overwhelming. In Gujarat
2002, where his victims were, by and large, a minority; demonetization pits the
wishes and hopes of more than a billion citizens against him. That’s why Modi
is going to such lengths to convince selected audiences he has the support of
the vast silent majority that has suffered because of the black economy.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #2b2b2b;">Back in the real world,
many economists are predicting a massive deflation led by huge drops in
employment, in investment, in trade. The GDP is expected to plummet to the
original Hindu rate of growth.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #2b2b2b;">The countdown begins now;
at stake is whether people will be swayed by his fantasies or hold him
responsible for the massive damage demonetization has perpetrated on the
nation. The way things are going, he could be a one-term prime minister. But
there’s no telling what other knee-jerk options he could pull out of his bag of
amoral cunning.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;">(<span style="color: #222222;">An edited version of this post will appear in http://timesofindia.com,
January 14, 2017.</span>)</span></span></span></div>
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Rajiv N Desaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04886761100825959265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7537489380457243489.post-43721351449649565572016-12-03T11:14:00.000+05:302017-11-15T15:53:36.108+05:30Misinterpreting the mandate<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; color: #2b2b2b;">Narendra
Modi ran the 2014 election campaign, asking for a mandate in his name; the
party was secondary. In the event, he helped the BJP secure 282 seats in
Parliament, an absolute majority. The last time any party singly won so many
seats was in 1984 when the Congress won 404. Modi seems to have interpreted the
mandate as an irreversible affirmation of his popularity as a leader, right up
there with the luminaries who won India its independence, then nurtured its
democracy and diversity and finally transformed it into a dynamic new player on
the world stage.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #2b2b2b;">There are two ways to
understand Modi’s unrealistic assessment of his own popularity. One, he
single-handedly took the BJP’s tally of 18 percent in the 2009 election to 31
percent from 18 percent, its traditional share of the vote. Two, Modi may have
been right in interpreting that he broke through beyond the Hindutva vote to
new constituencies with his message of development and governance. Clearly,
though, that is a temporary surge that can disappear very quickly as Rajiv
Gandhi found in 1989.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #2b2b2b;">A mature leader with
greater experience in national politics would have looked beyond the absolute
majority. In 2004, when the Congress-led the UPA coalition to an unexpected
win, Sonia Gandhi and her colleagues took the sober view that it was a
rejection of the BJP’s “<a href="http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/nda-india-shining-worst-poll-strategy/1/270916.html" style="background-attachment: scroll; background-position: 0% 0%; box-sizing: border-box; max-width: 100%;"><span style="color: #2b2b2b; text-decoration: none;">India Shining</span></a>” narrative
tacked on to the party’s baseline Hindutva agenda. Accordingly, the Congress
view was the party’s communal core remained intact but new adherents, who had, by
and large, voted the BJP for change, pulled out, disappointed in the lackluster
performance of the Vajpayee government.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #2b2b2b;">Likewise, had Modi been a
more contemplative leader, he would have recognized that <a href="https://www.google.co.in/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjj-fKKocvQAhWKJpQKHdnrD88QFggtMAI&url=http%3A%2F%2Ftimesofindia.indiatimes.com%2Fnews%2FBJPs-31-lowest-vote-share-of-any-party-to-win-majority%2Farticleshow%2F35315930.cms&usg=AFQjCNHH1fXQGFn3pQbLaL3VGRK9EAN-zg&sig2=E0tURNQl7yGlwQgE7NGdiQ" style="background-attachment: scroll; background-position: 0% 0%; box-sizing: border-box; max-width: 100%;"><span style="color: #2b2b2b; text-decoration: none;">69 percent</span></a> of the
electorate spurned both his Hindutva appeal and his promise of development and
governance. Looking at a glass that is one-third full as a huge improvement
over less than the traditional fifth, Modi thought he could do just about
anything and get away with it. He was used to that in Gujarat, where his writ
ran because the number of seats in the assembly matched the vote on the ground.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #2b2b2b;">For a while it appeared as
though the absolute majority in Parliament was a Teflon coating: <a href="http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/politics/pm-modi-must-break-his-silencevyapam-lalitgate-gandhi_2110021.html" style="background-attachment: scroll; background-position: 0% 0%; box-sizing: border-box; max-width: 100%;"><span style="color: #2b2b2b; text-decoration: none;">Lalitgate, Vyapam</span></a>, <a href="http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/ftii-gates-opens-after-2-years/1/725787.html" style="background-attachment: scroll; background-position: 0% 0%; box-sizing: border-box; max-width: 100%;"><span style="color: #2b2b2b; text-decoration: none;">FTII</span></a>, a series of <a href="http://indianexpress.com/article/india/politics/congress-attacks-pm-modi-over-national-anthem-faux-pas/" style="background-attachment: scroll; background-position: 0% 0%; box-sizing: border-box; max-width: 100%;"><span style="color: #2b2b2b; text-decoration: none;">faux pas</span></a> in India and
overseas, the loss in Bihar, the botched-up attempts to dislodge Congress governments
in Arunachal and Uttarakhand, rank communalism and beef politics, JNU,
Hyderabad, Pathankot, Kashmir, Uri…nothing seemed to stick. This emboldened him
to swear and sneer at opponents, favour cronies and generally stride about the
landscape like some colossus batting off scam and scandal, fraud and failure.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #2b2b2b;">Until the demonetization,
that is. On November 8, Modi’s megalomania finally went haywire. In one fell
swoop, he knocked the bottom out of the nation’s money supply; with a dramatic <a href="https://youtu.be/iUpPE8UDEzo" style="background-attachment: scroll; background-position: 0% 0%; box-sizing: border-box; max-width: 100%;"><span style="color: #2b2b2b; text-decoration: none;">announcement</span></a>, he
invalidated all 500 and 1000 rupee notes, a full 87 percent of the currency in
circulation, valued at over 200 billion USD. The speech, as always cunning,
contained a cadence of dog whistles that seemed to suggest that in his 30
months as prime minister, the Indian economy has become one of the bright spots
in the world and in single-handedly achieving this, he had the support of 125
crore Indians.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #2b2b2b;">His televised address will
go down as the biggest display of chutzpah since George W Bush’s <a href="https://youtu.be/2zT-ZHBbOzM" style="background-attachment: scroll; background-position: 0% 0%; box-sizing: border-box; max-width: 100%;"><span style="color: #2b2b2b; text-decoration: none;">announcement</span></a> of the
“shock and awe” campaign against Iraq in 2003. Unlike Bush, who seemed to have
become a neocons mascot and pretty much went along with the program, Modi conveyed
the decision was his and his alone.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #2b2b2b;">As the magnitude of the
disruption became clear, Modi backtracked. A <a href="http://www.sundayguardianlive.com/investigation/7475-officials-advised-pm-modi-ban-85-india-s-currency" style="background-attachment: scroll; background-position: 0% 0%; box-sizing: border-box; max-width: 100%;"><span style="color: #2b2b2b; text-decoration: none;">narrative</span></a>was issued suggesting
the following: demonetization was devised by “concerned officials who wished to
shield those in high positions in banks across the country from the
consequences of the crony-oriented lending that they had been doing especially
since 2006, the year when Narasimha Rao’s liberalization policy was fully
substituted by the UPA into a faux Nehruvian economic policy that combined
Fabian socialism with Wall Street ways.”</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #2b2b2b;">In other words, holdovers
from the corrupt UPA are responsible. “Prime Minister Modi was presented with
the issue in such a way that turning down the scheme was out of the question,”
the narrative quoted “senior officials” as saying. It goes on to add that Modi
“raised several queries, especially on the impact on the common man and only when
it was conveyed to him that steps were being taken to minimize hardship did he
agree to the measure.”</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #2b2b2b;">So there you have it. It’s
all the doing of the corrupt UPA that still has its talons hooked into the
bureaucracy. It’s not clear from this story if the Modi government plans to
prosecute former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, former Finance Minister P
Chidambaram and UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi for promulgating this draconian
edict.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #2b2b2b;">As the shock and awe
receded to reveal huge lines at banks and ATMs, millions of harassed citizens
and dozens of deaths, it became apparent the demonetization was flawed.
Certainly, the implementation was disastrous; increasingly, however, the <a href="http://scroll.in/article/822132/a-flawed-policy-the-real-problem-with-demonetisation-is-not-just-in-implementation" style="background-attachment: scroll; background-position: 0% 0%; box-sizing: border-box; max-width: 100%;"><span style="color: #2b2b2b; text-decoration: none;">intent</span></a> has come into
question. Modi needs to answer for this cynical, ill-conceived and mean-minded
“masterstroke.” What are the reasons for it: to end the black money menace? To
deal with counterfeit currency? To spike terrorist funding? To speed transition
to a cashless economy?</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #2b2b2b;">If we accept Modi’s
assertion that the demonetization was aimed at bringing black money into the
system, there are questions of his government’s track record. With his photo writ
large over advertisements, Modi has claimed that in two-and-a-half years, his
government has brought black money worth 1.25 lakh crore rupees “out in the
open.” This is braggadocio considering that in its last two years, the UPA
government netted 1.31 lakh crore. This is just the kind of statistical <a href="http://www.digvijayasingh.in/Jumla-is-the-new-Black.html" style="background-attachment: scroll; background-position: 0% 0%; box-sizing: border-box; max-width: 100%;"><span style="color: #2b2b2b; text-decoration: none;">fact check</span></a>that people have
started to make. It’s clear that other than his core supporters, no one is
taking Modi’s assertions at face value anymore.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #2b2b2b;">He may have the support of
282 MPs but has just 31 percent of the vote. Shouldn’t he have had wide
consultation? Shouldn’t he have taken the opposition into confidence? After
all, everyone is on the same side as Indians first and the Opposition would
have supported any move that is in the larger national interest. The reason he
didn’t, leads to questions about intent. Such a massive disruption should have
been planned better. That it wasn’t, leads to questions about competence.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #2b2b2b;">Just 31 percent vote share,
dubious intent and evident ineptness are reasons for the nationwide protest
that was reported all over the world as a massive uprising against
demonetization. Most credible analysts believe that such a huge blow to the
economy, to citizens will cripple India for years.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; color: #222222;">(An edited
version of this post will appear in
http://http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com, December 3, 2016.)</span><span style="color: #2b2b2b;"> </span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></span><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
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Rajiv N Desaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04886761100825959265noreply@blogger.com0