Friday, November 27, 2009

Do not forget the horror - A nice, albeit incomplete, piece by Aditya Sinha

Aditya Sinha of the New Indian Express wrote a very good piece on the anniversary of 26/11. It is reproduced below, the original appeared here.

There are several eye-openers in the documentary film Terror in Mumbai, a 48-minute documentary on 26/11 made by Dan Reed for Britain’s Channel 4. One is the entire narrative itself; despite non-stop television coverage of the siege of Mumbai by the Lashkar-e-Toiba, you will not find a more taut, suspenseful, poignant and frightening document of the worst terrorist attack on India. It pains me to have to say that the best film on the subject is not by an Indian, but there you have it (by the way, Dan Reed was commissioned to do this documentary by Eamonn Matthews, who had seen Reed’s 2003 award-winning documentary Terror in Moscow about the siege by Chechen terrorists of a Moscow theatre). The film is being shown in the West (HBO is telecasting it in the USA) but, ironically, it is not being shown on Indian television (though you can see it on the internet: liveleak.com/view?i=1e4 _1246490858).


Perhaps many of you will yawn, for after all there has been a mind-numbing amount of writing in observance of the anniversary of 26/11, and most of it is so paint-by-numbers that it does disservice to the gravity of the event and the innocents who lost their lives. Indeed, that is the second eye-opener of Dan Reed’s documentary: how awful the Indian media is. True, we are not as bad as the Americans: their media processed the pack of lies that George W Bush’s administration fed its people, and is to blame for misleading the American public into that ruinous war on Iraq, the consequences of which include President Barack Obama’s struggle on the direction to take in Afghanistan (this is especially important for India, since leaving Afghanistan to the Taliban means empowering the ISI, as Steve Coll’s excellent 2004 book Ghost Wars repeatedly shows; and that means more terrorist attacks on India). Yet whereas the US media is complicit in screwing the planet, the Indian media is complicit in keeping us a zombie nation. The Indian media shrieks but does not inform us, which is why even those of us whose job is to eat, breathe and live the news, would be taken aback by the Channel 4 documentary.


Dan Reed uses the interrogation of Ajmal Kasab — the only LeT attacker caught alive — and conversations of the terrorists at the Taj Mahal hotel and Chabad House with their handlers in Pakistan to help structure the narrative. He also uses testimonies by some victims, which is more effective because it does not rely on cheap maudlin effects like the weepy music you will hear on whichever TV channel you turn to today; tellingly, most of the testimony used was from the poor victims at the VT railway station where Kasab and Ismail randomly shot dead dozens of victims (in an interview to MOB magazine, Dan Reed says the wealthier of the hostages or victims did not want to be interviewed, perhaps due to their nausea at the way the Indian media treated the event, but to the detriment of maintaining a fuller record). In this documentary, however, the fact that you hear the terrorists clearly, and their conversations used in the script intelligently, makes these parts the third eye-opener.


Frankly, we all knew that our intelligence agencies had recorded the conversations between the terrorists and their LeT handlers, but I think very few of us had heard them, and even so, the snippets that did appear in TV or in print were without context. In Terror in Mumbai the fact that the handlers sound like Punjabi shopkeepers makes it even more terrifying. The LeT, according to Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid’s Descent in Chaos, is a creation of the ISI solely for Indian operations. The ISI has long been a totally ruthless organisation; for instance, during the 1990s, when current Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s father tried to speak out against the Taliban, he was shot dead coming out of a Quetta mosque, according to Coll’s book. According to Rashid’s book, when the UN imposed arms sanctions on the Taliban regime after the 2000 attack on the USS Cole, the ISI made it clear it would kill any UN monitors posted on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border to stop the arms and fuel flow. The ISI takes no prisoners.


To fully grasp the enormity of this, listen to the handlers’ voices in these conversations, congratulating the terrorists while watching them on TV; ordering them to take hostages when they learn that Kasab has been captured, because the handlers don’t want anyone taken alive (for reasons made obvious by Kasab’s confessional statements); ordering them to overcome their hesitation and kill the Holtzberg husband-wife duo at Chabad House (to the extent of ordering the terrorists to keep the phone line open so that they could listen as the execution takes place); and at the end of the film, chillingly ordering the terrorists to tell the government that 26/11 is only a “trailer”; that the rest of the picture is yet to come.


That the rest of the picture will come is in no doubt. A year after the attacks, the same people who were asleep on the job when Kasab and associates floated onto our shores are still asleep on the job. If you watch the documentary then it becomes apparent: the lower-level policemen admit that their brains “froze” when the attack happened, that they did not know what to do. Telling them what to do is the job of higher officials. Listen to Rakesh Maria in this film, and you will realise that our babudom is too self-important and self-serving to ever learn their lessons. They need to train our forces, again and again, in reacting, and in simply shooting on target. Unfortunately, 26/11 has just become an occasion to spend money on new weaponry, and you all know what happens when government servants are given money to spend. Then there are our intelligence agencies and the political management. As the Express showed last week, the less said the better.


Of course, this column does not advocate going out and bombing ISI headquarters in Islamabad (the Pakistani Taliban are already on the job), but if you watch Dan Reed’s documentary, you may feel like going out and doing the deed yourself. Which is why, despite the usual even-temper and level-headedness of this column, I urge you all to watch this film, and make your children watch Dan Reed’s documentary. In all the clamour and clutter that will mark today, this is the one testament to the horror no Indian should be allowed to forget.

Though reminding us that we must not foget 26/11, Mr. Sinha does not suggest what we must understand from 26/11. He does give his pointers: Our establishment is still asleep, media was abysmal, and so on. The mediocrity of our media was pointed out by this author recently. But I am not the first. Countless Indians have been feeling this for long now.

Administrative efficiency, media performance, etc., do need improvement. But is that enough? I feel Mr. Sinha fails in his endeavour by not pointing out that Islam is seriously, certainly, and intimately related to terror, and 26/11 was a blatant and bloody reminder of that. And unless we realize that the premise we are being fed everyday, namely Islam is a religion of peace, is a false premise, we would be far from waking up.

It is just not that the establishment, administration, and the media is sleeping,. It is also that they are also putting all of us, the Indians who finally have to suffer the consequences, to sleep by fostering propaganda of false premises.

Friday, November 20, 2009

Icons of a nation.


In early twentieth century, a demagogue inspired his followers by the adjoining image. It taught, he said, "hear no evil", "see no evil", "speak no evil". However, he thought, it said, "close your ears to warnings of evil", "close your eyes to dangers of evil", and "never talk about the causes of evil". And so his followers have become a society, which closes its eyes, very much like an ostrich burying its head in the sand, to impending dangers. It refuses to discuss about the causes of grave and horrendous events in history, and it chooses to ignore, any sane voice that strives to tell us its point of view.

Monkeys, or gorillas may not be as smart as Santa-Banta, but they are much smarter than most of the followers of this demagogue. They know how to survive, but these followers only know how to be servile.

There must certainly be an effort to chronicle and analyse some of the events epitomising the DF-titude. Let us help ourselves in this endeavour, and learn from the DF-ness of the past.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Drama-2009 in Karnataka BJP.

Thayee (Ms. Sushma Swaraj) has finally spilled the beans. Ms. Swaraj said that "The crisis has put all of us to shame!" And you know what caused it? Shhhh... don't tell anyone, "It is the lack of communication on part of Yeddy."

I am tempted to relate a grand old joke about Santa and Banta. If you already know the joke, please skip the following paragraph. It's the one about horses.

Santa and Banta buy a pair of horses, one each for themselves. They have a hard time identifying which horse belongs to who because the horses look identical. Santa comes up with a brilliant idea, and suggests that he will cut-off the tail of his horse, so that the horse without tail will be Santa's and the one with a tail will be Banta's. But the children in their neighbourhood are very mischievous. Noticing Santa-Banta's predicament they play a trick and cut-off the tail of Banta's horse as well. This brings Santa-Banta back to square one. Now it is Banta's turn to make a bold gesture, and he kindly agrees to rip-off his horse's one ear. But the neighbourhood-kids are equally smart, and they rip-off Santa's horse's corresponding ear too. This continues for a few days and finally Santa and Banta have their horses whose ears, tails are all severed. Then Santa gets the idea of the century. If you want to visualize the light on Banta's face on hearing Santa's idea, recall what-an-idea-Sirji advertisement. Santa tells Banta, "Oye Banta, you take the white horse, I take the black horse".

I know you will ask, "But what has this joke got to do with this piece of news?" The answer is simple. Santa and Banta are poor-butt-of-the-jokes blokes numbering a meagre two. Nevertheless, despite all the mutilations to their respective horses, they could finally figure it out! Here we have four geniuses from the parliamentary committee of the party-with-a-difference, and do you think that they have figured it out at all? Not an iota of a chance.

The intelligence-equation is obvious: Two poor-butt-of-the-jokes blokes have much greater intelligence than four parliamentarians of BJP put together. No points for guessing what that difference is in the party-with-a-difference.

Remember that even though horses may look ugly when their ears or tails are mutilated, they can still run or pull carts. However, can political parties run if they amputate their own slogging members?

This, by no means, implies that non-BJP parties are better off than Santa-Banta. Far, very far from it. Rather, the most difficult question that the pundits are facing is: "Who is the stupidest political party of them all?", and opinion is divided on the matter. But they all agree that none from them can better Santa-Banta.

Santa-Banta were heard discussing among themselves:

1. Santa asked Banta: If BSYeddy was not communicating, why were Mr. Baligar and Ms. Karandlaje ex-communicated?

2. Banta asked Santa: Why could thayee not order her maklu to stop illegal mining business and concentrate on minding their legitimate business?

3. Santa-Banta are not feminists but they did notice a strange phenomenon! Two "He"s get into an "ego" problem, One "She" arrives to find a solution, and the solution she imposes is: another "She" has to go! So the ego-problem between two "He"s may or may not have been solved, but the ego-problem between the two "She"s must have undeniably got aggravated.

May I ask you esteemed readers with keen intelligence to help Santa and Banta?

Monday, November 16, 2009

Three Main Blunders in the history of Modern India

Prehistory:

The invasions began sometime in 700 A.D. A lot of historical research needs to be done to analyse the causes and effects of the period that ensued. That is not in the scope of this article.

Let us start at just about independence. In 1947, we began with a great hope. Things happened potentially rightly but not actually.

Partition:


Praising Jinnah is irrelevant and can be left to pig-heads like Lalkrishn A. and Jaswant S. What we must praise is partition. Not the geographical, but the religious. For long, fools toyed with the idea that Hindus and Muslims can live together. Note that Hindu is being used as synonym for some one who practices Sanatana Dharma, and Muslim denotes a practitioner of Islam. For once, wisdom thought that Hindus and Muslims can never live together. Nothing new in this, Muslims can never stay in peace with non-Muslims. It is another matter that often they do not live in peace with even other Muslims. But then we made the blunder of ignoring (not seeing) the fact that Hindus and Muslims cannot live together.

Hence, although partition could have happened for the good, but it did not happen rightly. It should either have been in to Muslim India and Hindu India, or into three parts Muslim India, Hindu India, and Secular India.

Just imagine! Mohandas, Jawahar, and Communists could have gone to Muslim India, or Secular India. So partition was not bad per se, it was badly done!

Post Partition:

What ensued was one DF-ness after another. Let's mention the salient ones.

1. Mohandas-ian non-violence and SP-ian Sarva-Dharma-Sambhav (applied to include Islam).

Consequence: This resulted in spineless surrender to nuisance makers, made us weak, spiritually, emotionally, mentally and physically.

2. Jawahar-ian-statism: Socialism/Central-Planning. This was propaganda based dictatorship. Not even the debacle in 1962 opened our eyes. Fools galore all over the place shouting that we must strengthen Panditji's hands post-humiliating-defeat. Emergency in 1975 evoked a knee-jerk reaction. Janata Party came, struggled, and fell. And the DF-ness continues.

Consequence: This made us dependent and unself-reliant, instead of innovating and enterprising.

3. Communistic-Secularism: Appeasement-Affirmative-Action. This blamed all evils of India on Sanatana Dharma or Hinduism. Brahminical-tyrrany, casteist-exploitation were some of the frequently used swear words. Not that we had no ills in our society.

Consequence: But it made us self-hating, self-doubting; practically suicidal.


Symptoms:

1. After 26/11 we have been furnishing "proofs" to Pakistan. Did US even have (let alone furnish) any proof to Afganistan post 9/11? We will say, but we are not as strong as US, not even as strong as China. But why? We believe in being weak! See our Manmohanian nuclear policy. DFs like K Subramanian , R Rajaraman writing that we donot need fusion bombs, because fission devises are lethal enough!! Since deterrence is not effective against irrational adversary. So what should we do? Their answer is, "nothing can be done"! Ask them what they will do if a potential irrational rapist was staying next to their holiday beach-resort.

In my opinion, India's current doctrine of no-first-use of force is useless at best. Firstly, the terrorists have already struck innumerable blows! So even if we strike now, we are only retaliating. Secondaly, even if the terrorists had not struck, and we had tangible evidence, we should have struck. One of the things that can certainly work against an irrational adversary is pre-emptive strikes.

2. In 2009, recession struck. Commies went berserk shouting at roof tops blaming free-market, and capitalism for the down slide. What they didn't shout is that the sub-prime lending crisis of the US was an outcome of central-planning (a thoroughly commie idea), and not free-market. And let me remind you that this government bail-out package too is a commie idea. And this bail-out is the cause for the second-dip that will come in 2010!

In my opinion, the more we rely on government, the more we empower the government, and thereby the more it becomes bigger and more and more wasteful and corrupt.

3. On Dec. 6, 1992 Babri-mosque was demolished, and the media has been shrieking since that Hindu-fundamentalism has been on rise. Liberhan commission has indicted numerous persons and has mentioned many causes, errors of omission and commission. As if the gravest danger to the nation comes from Hindus!

In my opinion, if Pakistan was made for Muslims (Islam followers), then India must be for non-Muslims! Importantly, the question one must be asking oneself is, if there were three partitions of the nation in 1947, namely Muslim, Secular, and Hindu; which part would one have chosen to be a citizen of? I give my answer: I would have chosen to be in Hindu India.

Remedy:

I mentioned various problems, and now I propose my preferred solution to them. In my opinion, in the place of what we have been practicing so far, we need:


1. Krishna's non-violence. Not Mohandas's

We must educate ourselves about dharma (a righteousness which alone can truly sustain us) well, so that we can discern if adharma is masquerading as dharma. Never practise tolerance, or non-violence towards adharma!

2. Chanakya's State. Not Jawahar's.

Free market with good moral values. Moral values through quality education about "Freedom, Personal Responsibility, and Wisdom of our heritage Sanatana Dharma". For the moment, we can make only a beginning with this. It may be too far fetched to talk of achieving Ram-rajya at this juncture.

3. Sanatana Dharma's open-mindedness. Not commie-secularism.

Truthful and honest recording of experiences. Learning by verifying or assimilating the wisdom of these experiences. Exploring in a spirit of freedom mellowed with a sense of responsibility. An unswerving and bold allegiance to truth. Discovering, and rediscovering truths pertaining to both Spirituality and Science and reaping benefits from them.

The Common Factor:

The answer has been given time and over again and again. Education, education, education. From the ancient times of the Vedas, to modern India's Vivekananda, to recent saints viz., Ramana, J Krishnamurti, have all emphasized one word. Education. Macaulay destroyed India by destroying its education, Communists (Jawahar to Romila thapar and company) have been destroying India by poisoning education. And now, if and when we want to rebuild our civilization, we must do it through education.

Let us begin NOW.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Another DF? ...

In a blog article I wrote about DFs. Sri sri Ravishankar, who is an esteemed member of any list comprising of DFs, established once again his credentials. His first public display of DF-ness was during his debate with Mr. Naik. Now he does it again. On a recent controversy, our SSR spoke to the media, and I quote:

Speaking to the media after the meeting, Sri Sri said, ''I told them that Vande does not just mean puja or prayer but also means thanksgiving. The first lines of Vande Mataram are not objectionable in any way. This issue should not be given more importance. The country is above all and there should be no rift between the Hindu and Muslims.'' Quoting a Supreme Court judgement, Sri Sri also said no one should be pressurised to sing Vande Mataram.


I hope some Sanskrit scholar clarifies on the matter. But SSR is a DF. No doubts about that.

Monotheism, RSS taking over BJP, and Crisis in BJP in Karnataka

Prologue:

I would comment on each the above points independently, but let me begin by giving my one line comment on these.

And those with weaker hearts and/or those who have delicate sensibilities, please excuse me for my explicit comments.

One Liner:

Each point epitomises, in a summary manner; thoughts, words, and actions of a Dumb Fuck, hereafter abbreviated as DF, or df.

Details:

1. On the Article on Monotheism

Fallacy:

The article is another attempt to understand Islam and Islamic point of view, with an aim to accommodating them.

Fact:

Rather than beating about the bush, we must unambiguously understand that Islam is incompatible with non-Islam, and therefore with us. Islam is non-reformable, always at WAR with others, and is mercilessly no-holds-barred including deception against non-Islamic faiths. So we rather be on our guard.

2. On RSS Taking over BJP

Fallacy:

BJP has swerved a lot from its lofty ideals while RSS, and Sangh Parivar have ideological clarity and depth to set the BJP right.

Fact:

BJP and its mentor RSS (and its family Sangh-Parivar) both have almost always been and are a buch of DFs. Time and again, they repeat the same mistakes. They have no ideological clarity, intellectual depth, or emotional understanding of the matter. They cheated people on Ram-Janmabhoomi in their hurry to form a government. Later, pig-headed leaders like Mr. Pramod Mahajan (in 2004) provided the ill-fated direction to the BJP, while Sushma Swaraj, and Arun Jaitley (in 2009) were busy enacting a Congress-like-high-command and installing L K Advani in the throne of a Sonia-of-BJP.

Indian politicians have Jawahar-meme in them, and therefore political parties have the congress-meme. Each politician is trying to become a Gandhi-Nehru of his constituency/region. And they are always sure that they have all the answers even before they even know the questions, an unmistakable symptom of a DF. Jawahar indeed was a DF, and so are his memetic clones. This is true across all political parties. Absence of fundamental and basic ingredients like intra-party democracy, a functional disagreement handling mechanism, a healthy platform to redress dissent ; all of these are symptoms of a sick political creed. Examples galore. YSR, Chandrababu Naidu in Andhra; Bal Thakery, Raj Thakery in Maharashtra, Vasundhara Raje in Rajasthan, etc., the list is almost endless.

BJP started out with claims of offering a genuinely different alternative. They may claim that they had (more so during Jansangh days) genuinely good intentions too. But we must be aware that good intentions are only a beginning, and hence they alone are not enough. But the speed with which they have replicated a congress within them is astonishing.

It is worth mentioning that an erstwhile leader of BJP (someone who was called 'the windbag' by the inimitable Sitaram Goel) took great pride in the fact that in his younger days he used to be compared with the great Jawahar.

3. On the Crisis in BJP in Karnataka

Fallacy:

B S Yeddyurappa is an honest innocent man who has been wronged by dissidence, and intra party subterfuge.

Fact:

While those at the helm of SP (both) are intellectually negligible, their state-leadership is comfortably ensconced in unmanliness. BSY wept in front of the mainstream media (MSM) like a pussy. He does not deserve any sympathy. He betrays pussillanimity, and yet seeks to be a leader! Even Baligar and Shobha would be happier if he was manly.

Suggestions:


1. We must be extremely alert against any efforts to portray Islam in a sanitized way. Islam is a sick ideology with a psychopath, mass-murderer, paedophile as its founder and eternal role-model for its followers. Its history is a story in deception and violence. Don't be deceived.

2. We, the admirers and followers of the Sanatana Dharma, need to found new political parties. We need to shift the platform of political debate, rather than eternally conceding ground to our adversaries in the name of tolerance and non-violence. We need to diligently do our home work and chalk out a lucid framework in which we can work together, where we can dissent, and also have a reasonable mechanism to redress dissent and our disagreements.

3. Karnataka situation is precariously poised and, I am afraid, doomed. After providing some more tamasha on TV, both Yeddys and Reddys will bid adieu to people and hold on to their money. May be elections again! We the people have to hold ourselves up and proceed. It is high time that we realize that politics is too serious a work to be left for Yeddys, Reddys, Gowdas, Swamys, Siddus, Prakashs etc. Don't hesitate to ask those among your friends and relatives, who promise competent performance, to contest elections, and deliver what the people vote them for, i.e. good governance. And remember, lesser government is good governance. Big government is almost always bad government. Let us move towards Freedom and Responsibility.


Epilogue:

Please do express your opinions freely. If you found what I have written to be outrageous, well that was my intention. Hindus in India have, unfortunately, become so docile and submissive, that they need a waking up. Once they are awake, I am sure they will do the needful. They have been a great civilization, and they will surely be one.