Glad to see the new ruthless BJP. Hope it lasts.

I, for one, am glad to see the new BJP. They have to win 2024 at any cost, and to hell with social niceties. I hope this isn’t an aberration.

You can be politically correct, ethical and moral when the people on the other side display similar qualities. By now, it’s pretty clear those ranged against the BJP have no such sterling qualities.

I’m glad the BJP has finally overcome that psychological hurdle that it is not sacrificing its core political ideology, even as it bends its own rules of being a party with a difference to beat the Opposition at its game.

This Opposition that accuses the BJP constantly of being a washing machine, in effect, collectively runs the largest political laundromat in the world. And there are innumerable examples. Take Arvind Kejriwal. Since he entered politics, his political life has been a litany of broken promises. There is not one politician left who he has not accused of corruption and threatened to lock up. But has he? Even one?

And yet, for political expediency, he has hugged and shaken hands with all of them. He might wear the same shirt, but I am sure it goes to the laundry every other day, like his political beliefs. He’s the new Mr. Clean.

Then there’s Nitish Kumar, who runs his own laundry service that whitewashes his political ideology as he swings from right-wing to secular left-liberal at his convenience. Do you want me to mention the Yadav families of Bihar and UP? I don’t think so. The one in Bihar is preparing to spend some quality time in jail, again.

Look at the Communists who claim they have no religious ideology but send their atheist thoughts to the cleaners when they want to support parties that believe in a hardcore religious doctrine.

And finally, there’s the Congress. What do you say about India’s oldest political party?

They are the last people to lecture the BJP on political morality. From strong-arming a President to sign an Emergency proclamation to having another who was ready to sweep the floor for one of their kids, to have ‘committed’ judges, to have a battery of lawyers prepared to save their first family from corruption cases…the acts of malfeasance indulged in by the Congress are too many to mention here.

Its leaders can abuse right-wing parties, the RSS and its ideologues and then quickly slip into a dhoti, spread Vibhuti on their foreheads and fall at the feet of any God or Goddess before an election. The next day wearing skull caps, they can support politicians who hate cows enough to eat them and, with a straight face, say only they can ‘save’ the Minorities from the BJP.

Rahul Gandhi goes abroad and cavorts with all those actively engaged in anti-India activities. Then, even before he returns, his faithful advisors run his views and the dubious company he keeps through the party laundromat, and they all vanish from sight! And the 53-year-old Boy Wonder is back to showing his dimples.

And the latest circus to hit town is the Patriotic Democratic Alliance (PDA), who all run their private laundry services. Although, one of them suffered a setback just a day before when the workers at its dry cleaning service revolted. They’re having some managerial issues. Let’s see when they reopen under new management!

Kaam chalu aahey.

This Congress Party and Opposition can’t defeat Modi!

Am I the only one who thinks so, but do the rising decibels of foul language against Modi and other BJP leaders have anything to do with the dwindling fortunes of the Congress party and the Opposition as they get ready to take on the NDA in 2024? Since mid-2000, Congress has seen power slipping away. Modi has chipped away, state by state, dismantling the ecosystem that protects the family.

Fanning the fires of Gujarat 2002 has run its course. Corruption and cronyism accusations have fallen by the wayside. Every attempt, even the latest, to throw dirt on Modi has failed. Yesterday in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, the specific allegations against Modi by Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge were expunged in both Houses because they were without any basis. Attempts to link Modi and Adani fell flat. And that is frustrating the Opposition to no end. And the only way they know how to retaliate is by being abusive. They are running out of answers. The problem is all Q&As come from one source. And that’s the elephant in the room – the dynasty.

The nose and the constant reminders of ‘martyrdom’ by the family notwithstanding, NONE of the family have the charisma, the guts or the guile of Indira Gandhi to take on Modi. Congress had hoped the Bharat Jodo Yatra would do it for them. They can thump their chests all they want, but what has it achieved? It’s like SRK’s PR machinery rigging the box office returns of Pathaan even when theatres across the country run empty. So getting two-bit celebs, sidelined politicians, bureaucrats, retired generals, and a smattering of rabid Modi-haters, all with their own agendas, to walk with you is not going to change the fortunes of the party.

Even throughout the walk, the only thing consistent about Rahul Gandhi was the nonsense he spoke. And like a running tap, it flowed constantly. As his beard grew longer, so did his inanities. He’s been made to believe that the walk was a resounding success. Now that it’s ended, someone seems to have whispered to him that he needs to travel from East to West now. All the best to him!

You would think the long walk might have changed him, but no. He shot off his mouth again! The latest blooper was to call an elected chief minister a thug who doesn’t understand religion. Yogi Adityanath is also a mahant of a math, and probably understands more about religion than Rahul’s entire dynasty starting from Motilal. But hey, how does it matter when your people don’t dare to tell you that you’re damaging the party and whatever chances you have at the hustings and the political careers of all those who have tied their fortunes to it?

Yogi said a few days back that BJP will keep winning as long as Rahul is around. And it is true. That’s also why all the smart ones have unhitched themselves from the Congress gravy train. Only those who nobody else will hire and those Rajiv Gandhi once called limpets are hanging around the party. They will continue to be around long after.

Meanwhile, Rahul keeps saying that he has been questioning Modi for the past decade, but he is not giving him answers. What he doesn’t say is that the courts have answered all his questions. What unfolded on Thursday in the Rajya Sabha was an embarrassment, and the behaviour of those we call our ‘elders’ an abomination. Hooliganism was the only thing visible as the PM spoke. That he completed his speech with all the shouting in his face is a credit to the man. And the entire nation heard it. Is this how Congress and the Opposition want to defeat Modi in 2024? Is this how Rahul wants to defeat Modi? If this is their strategy, Modi has nothing to worry about.

Time to leave, Rahul

I say this as a former long-time Congress supporter/voter. Feel free to correct me, but I don’t believe that in 18 years as MP, Rahul Gandhi has given even one sensible, well-meaning, and crucial suggestion to the govt in power on any issue. All he has done is whine, complain and exaggerate. And the issues he has raised in parliament have usually been overshadowed by the blunders he makes while speaking. And when he’s not doing all of that, he’s holidaying.

Many of us then felt that if Rahul had to take over the reins of the country someday, he needed to understand how to run a state machinery. Becoming chief minister of a Congress-ruled state would be the perfect place to start. But the reason given against that was that Rajiv Gandhi also had no administrative experience when he took over.

The truth is Rajiv took over at a difficult time for India. Most Indians born after 1950 had never experienced the trauma of an assassination. Indira’s death affected the country deeply. For whatever reason, the Congress party decided to impose the son on us. The country was too shocked to comprehend then. It was just relieved to see the young man step up and accept the responsibility.

But as events proved, the Rajiv Gandhi charisma unravelled pretty fast. Rahul had no such encumbrances. On the contrary, he has had the collective experience of senior Congressmen and women around him from a 100-plus-year-old party, whom he could observe closely and learn. He could have studied the political nuances and the nitty-gritty of running a party and country. But he didn’t. He didn’t think he needed to understand governance for that.

He believed, and his fawning courtiers around him have made him think to date in the illusion that he is anointed to lead, first the party and then the country, because he is a member of the dynasty that ruled India the longest. And that probably would have happened if one Narendra Damodardas Modi hadn’t decided to storm the citadel, which was the preserve of the Congress and its well-cultivated ecosystem.

It has been eight years, and the Modi wave shows no signs of abating. The BJP has stated that it is no longer willing to play second fiddle. BJP has stamped its presence, and Modi has become this larger-than-life persona domestically and globally, who isn’t an aberration like the Gujrals, Deve Gowdas, Charan Singhs and Chandra Shekhars of the world. Or even a full-term PM Vajpayee. He’s here to stay. And neither the 137-year-old Congress party nor the dynasty that straddled it for decades can do anything to stop him.

But even as Rahul’s ardent admirers (yes, he still has many) have been drumming it into us since 2004 that he’s a better choice than Modi, he has been found wanting in every box where you want to tick ✔️ you can only tick X — Political acumen, commitment, long-term stability… you name it. He’s failed everywhere. Listen to his speeches and stage-managed interviews. They are bereft of facts, figures and substance.

Even in parliament, he has come across as a politician who is more interested in having fun than engaging in serious debate with facts and figures. More often than not, he ends up looking like a joke. In politics, it is not enough to be a nice guy, which I am sure he is. But, as pictures have proved, he comes across as a personable, affectionate man. But is that enough to beat a ruthless Modi or anyone else who comes after him? BJP has shown that it is here to stay, and the majority (no pun) would rather have them and Modi in power than Congress.

Can this Rahul Gandhi change that?

It’s the liberal way or the highway…

I had tweeted this as a thread, but I thought I should put it on my blog for posterity.

I think the only reason I became such a vocal Modi supporter in 2014 was that the despicable, hypocritical left-liberals with the tacit support of Congress and the Left decided they would not respect the election mandate or the laws and blindly oppose anything this government proposed with protests and PILs.

I had never seen anything like it since I began voting at an early age. Whatever my political leanings, I stood by the government in power. I was too young to vote but remember the protests against Indira for subverting democracy. That’s how democracy worked then – until 2014, at least.

In 2014, Narendra Modi won an election fair and square. Even those like me who didn’t vote for Modi, knew he was going to win because India had hit a huge pothole called Congress and its dynasties that ruled us and people wanted them out. Modi promised to do that.

Now had the protests against Modi begun in the middle of his first term one could understand, but they began in the first few weeks of his rule. I thought people were letting off steam and things would settle down. But they didn’t. They picked up the pace. Then I saw those familiar faces behind protests and PILs.

This was the power-hungry dynasty and its stooges being bad losers and instigating the people to protest against a legally elected PM. They were scared of losing power to a generation that had seen through them. Sane voices were rudely shoved aside, jeered and heckled. This was a new India I hadn’t seen before. And I didn’t like it.

The hypocrisy of left-liberals left me quite breathless and so did their justifications for political expediency. Certain definitions were being assiduously promoted. It began with the whitewashing of the Delhi riots. A riot in a BJP-ruled state after a train is burnt was a pogrom but a state-managed riot after the killing of a PM was just an aberration so can we look beyond it, please? Riots before 2014? Nah, again just aberrations. “SHUT UP. We don’t want to talk about it”.

Befriending a Muslim, visiting a mosque, eating beef was the sign of being a liberal. But visiting a temple or wearing a Kautuka or Janeuyu made you a rabid ‘bhakt’. Having a Muslim friend, who wore a skull cap and prayed five times a day and calling him ‘bhai’ made you a liberal but befriending a Hindu who said ‘Jai Shri Ram and wanted a Ram temple, made you a Fascist.

I will hold the left-liberals responsible for this divide. The more they tried to vilify a community, the louder the other side got. Now, I am no temple-hopping, chest-thumping Hindu. Not even today, despite all that’s swirling around me. But back in 2014, something inside me snapped. Today, the neo-liberals (and I call them that deliberately because they are no better than the neo-fascists in Germany) were and are browbeating people to come around to their viewpoint.

If you think I am exaggerating, look at what is happening around you today in India and all over the world. It is they who want a new world order and a new order in India even if it means resorting to violence and mayhem. They believe Modi and his ‘bhakts’ are a threat to their existence. Well, they have a fight on their hands.

The ‘bhakts’ have seen Power and want more. Their man rules this country and they are propagating His vision of a new India. They’ve waited a hundred years and if you don’t like it, it’s just too bad. They don’t care anymore what anyone thinks. And again, this wouldn’t have happened if the liberals hadn’t tried pushing them into a corner. Because now more than anything else, all they want is to keep the liberals out – come what may.

To understand more read this: https://mohansblog.wordpress.com/2017/10/29/from-a-nehru-dynasty-fan-to-a-modi-bhakt/

 

“We did everything adults would do. What went wrong?”

I used to hear this often: You’re a teacher, you should watch what you say.

Now, I wonder, did these people ever tell the teachers in JNU or Jadavpur not to encourage students to abuse their professors on TV channels or social media platforms, their peers, or even the prime minister? Or beat their peers on the head with iron rods? I bet the answer is no. Why? Because they might get abused or even manhandled. And I won’t do any of that. I was rebuked by some of my ex-students and even abused by others for tweets against students. Why? According to them, I did not understand the seriousness of what is happening in JNU. Really! Do the ladies and gentlemen sitting in the TV studios around the country who pass judgement on the state of the country have the courage to tell the political class that it is time the college campuses around the country were cleansed of their filthy influence? Why blame some student union leader for engaging in violence or even abusing people? He or she learns from their political masters.

But, what brought about this blog? Two events. The first was the sight of a JNU student abusing Prof. Anand Ranganathan @ARanganathan72 on air. I was appalled at this entitled brat who had done nothing of prominence except feed off his parents and the taxpayer, thinking it was so woke to abuse a professor, scientist and author on air only because their views didn’t match.

A well known news anchor told me, “Manners, I have realised are now considered old fashioned. ‘Stop trying to be a sanskari aunty’ I was told.”

“It was our parents who would have beaten me black and blue if I dared to talk back to my teacher, even when my teacher beat me.”

But now let’s come to some of my former students who have a special place reserved for me in hell, since 2014 or thereabouts! These former students will either get on social media and abuse me or won’t think twice before calling me up and giving me a piece of their mind because they know I won’t retaliate. They know they can get away with it by blaming it on youthful exuberance. So they keep doing it – on Twitter, on Facebook. First, it was a gentle rebuke, then there were argumentative debates and now its abuse such as calling me a ‘motherfucker’ ‘asshole’ ‘bastard’ – none of which I ever was or ever will be. I guess that is how they address their parents or their parents address them.

I guess it also happens when you are a rich entitled brat, brought up in an environment when you see your parents abuse their servants, drivers or even their employees, even though the latter is much older, and think it is okay to do that. If being liberal and woke means abusing teachers and seniors, I am glad I’m not any of those things that today’s generation prides itself in being. I come from a generation which even today stands up when one sees a former teacher approaching, or addresses ex-bosses as ‘sir’. Of course, there are also those students who apologise to me on the behalf of these uncouth halfwits and we laugh over it.

The latest abuse happened on Tuesday last, when I posted a video of policemen in Delhi forcing rioters to sing Jana Gana Mana. It seemed to have irked some ultraliberal ex-students of mine. My point in posting the video was that these were the ones who were thumping their chests and threatening to decimate India. And now look at them quivering in fear even as a policeman poked them with his lathi. In hindsight, maybe I should have not used it. However, since it is open season for abusing teachers online and offline, I was subjected to the vilest personal abuse from some ex-students online. Then, one student, a polite one, called me up and hinted that I could take it down, which I did without an argument or even a protest. And only because I have tremendous respect for this boy. While we have arguments, he has never resorted to abuse. Which I am afraid I can’t say for the rest.

During the height of the Punjab militancy, I saw my seniors asking for the ‘score’. Later I realised they were asking not about a cricket score but the number of people killed by terrorists that day. The figures decided where the story would appear. Just a couple dead meant one paragraph on the inside page. Five deaths meant 4 paragraphs on the inside pages. Ten deaths sent it to Page 1 in 4 paragraphs. Larger the figure, bigger the story and placement on the page. Sure, we also felt for those killed but we didn’t stand up and swear loudly at the militants and threaten to behead them. Today, of course, there is Twitter for that. Then, I was horrified at the casualness of their approach. It was a hard lesson for me – never take any story to heart.

Here is some advice, if as a media student or even a journalist you take everything you see personally – whether a riot, a picture, a video or a political campaign, then you shouldn’t be in the profession. For a media person, it is better to stay detached to events happening around you otherwise the reporting of events becomes subjective rather than objective. And that is how ‘narratives’ are woven.

Incidentally, the video in question is still being shared on Twitter and various WhatsApp groups including one run by senior journalists from one of India’s largest media houses. And now there is another video doing the rounds. This one of the IB officer’s body being fished out of the gutter. I don’t see too many woke liberals asking that the video not be shown. Wonder why.

Strangely, the abuse against me began only after I started supporting Prime Minister Narendra Modi and my Twitter numbers began to rise after he began following me. Till I didn’t support him, I was a nice guy and a good teacher – well, at least to some. They didn’t seem to have a problem when I supported a man who presided over a pogrom that massacred thousands of Sikhs in the nation’s capital and around the country. Now that I am neither a journalist nor a teacher, having quit both, over six years ago, I have suddenly become a racist bigot, a lousy teacher and not a nice human to know because I say things that disturb their fragile left-liberal ecosystem. The problem is that a lot of people have lost the ability to look logically at everything around them. And all this because they hate one man and by extension those who support him. And what infuriates them more is that he doesn’t care about what they think of him.

My advice to these people – don’t read me and don’t follow me if I offend you that much. I survived the politics of 40 years in corporate life, of which 30 was in journalism, only because of thick skin and a sense of humour. And it’s a bit too late to change now when I’m through 80 per cent of my life. And, in case you didn’t notice, we are still a democracy where I have the right to say what I want within permissible limits. I hope I don’t live to see the day in a democracy where myopic liberals will decide what we need to say or not say because it offends a particular community – like elsewhere in the world. And look where the rest of the world is today. Also, if you feel so strongly about the issues in the country, if you have the guts, tell that to the politician concerned – politely. If you have a problem with Narendra Modi take it out on him. If Modi is making you a stark raving lunatic, a psychotic or neurotic because he doesn’t respond to your abuses, go see a psychiatrist or buy a punching bag. Don’t make me one because you don’t dare to accept your shortcomings.

If you still can’t do that, please get drunk, get stoned, get laid or drop dead. I don’t care. My responsibility ended once I left the classroom. That’s exactly what the director of an institute, where I once taught, told the parents of a student caught for smoking/possessing a banned substance. When the parents complained that it was the director’s duty to take care of the boy inside and outside college since they had left the boy with him, he politely told them it wasn’t because he was neither the parent nor the guardian. His responsibility ended at 6 p.m. Being stoned and lying in a gutter outside the premises is really not the institution’s problem, it’s just an example of bad parenting and issues that they need to take care of.

And one last thing. If you have allowed your personal beliefs and ideologies to override your professionalism, you are the media profession’s biggest failures. Like I said earlier, a lot of you were the dregs of a crappy parental system that institutions are left to deal with and have no interest in playing a mother. Well, maybe, neither does the media world and they’re just too polite to tell you. Pack up and look for another existence. Just stay off my timeline. I have no interest in reading what badly brought up, abusive, uncouth and ill-mannered brats have to say.

P.S.
The headline is a quote from my favourite book The Lord Of The Flies by William Golding.