India Retold

The West has been attracting Indian Gurus, both fake and real, for a very long time. Perhaps the first one to head for and live in the US was Parmahansa Yogananda, whose Autobiography of a Yogi continues to attract readers. Swami Prabhupada, who founded ISKCON, and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi are the other two who shot into limelight and acquired a large following after they set foot in the US.

The latest to join the 'pantheon' is controversial Yoga Guru Baba Ramdev. Born Ramkishan Yadav in a village in Haryana, he suffered from paralysis as a child and was able to regain full functionality of his body through Patanjali's Yoga. Dropping out of school in class eight, he joined a gurukul, assumed sanyas and took his present name. In 1995, he established the Yoga Mandir Vidya Trust. In 2002, Sanskar TV channel started airing his yoga classes. Overnight he became a sensation and soon started appearing on many TV channels.

Ever since then, his rise has been meteoric and his now vast organisation is reportedly worth hundreds of million dollars already. His Yoga camps are attended by thousands of people, and as many as 20 million view them live on TV regularly in 170 countries. Hundreds of thousands claim to have benefitted from the methods being taught by him to rid their bodes and minds of all kinds of ailments.

Thus, unlike most gurus who have preceded him in their Westward journey, Baba Ramdev is already a real rock star in India, the likes of which India has never seen. That may be because he is not a religious guru in the sense that commonly understood; he does not preach any religion. Yoga can be practiced by people belonging to all religions.

The Guru of Good Health is now expanding rapidly overseas too. He has just bought Little Cumbrae, a 684 acre, conch shaped island in Scotland for a little over $ 3 million. Technically, of course, it has been bought by Sunita Poddar to establish a centre of Baba Ramdev's Patanjali Yoga Peeth there. She and her husband have made their fortune in Scotland running a chain of Glasgow nurseries called Little Einsteins, and have now put their accumulated wealth in Baba Ramdev's retreat rather than in a holiday home or some such somewhere.

What led them to take this extraordinary decision? When Sunita first met Baba Ramdev in Britain in 2006, she was severely obese and on 12 tablets a day. She attended his Yoga camp for six days and lost six-and-a-half kilos. That motivated her to get more involved and help others too by getting a teaching certificate. Her husband claims that she lost 36 kilos in six months and has been completely cured of the many diseases that she had and needs no medication now. "My husband and I have worked very hard for what we have but now it's time to pay back the community, so we decided to buy this island and build this centre here" says Sunita. Little Cumbrae looks straight out of an Enid Blyton story with hidden coves, rugged cliffs, a Victorian residence, a Castle Keep and a lighthouse. The couple want to make it a "Shanti Dweep", an island of peace.

On September 27, 2009, Baba Ramdev took the first steps to turn this island into "a place of pilgrimage" and a "peace haven to spread Indian values", with "bhoomi pujan" and a "hawan" ceremony, as hundreds of people, including bemused journalists and locals, flocked to see him. Those gathered also got a glimpse of his yogic skills as he demonstrated some of them in what appeared to be a most unlikely setting.

1400 years back a nun from Lindisfame named St Veya established a religious sanctuary on this island. And now, something similar is being planned. Perhaps it is just a coincidence. Baba Ramdev does not plan to stay in Little Cumbrae but is expected to visit at twice a year. The Poddars will run the centre and also pursue their aim of making Scotland the healthiest nation in the world within 10 years by spreading the message that they have the tool of preventative measures to achieve that.

It is perhaps only a question of time before Baba Ramdev also crosses the Atlantic and sets up base in the ultimate destination of all gurus, "Patal Lok", the United States, in even more spectacular fashion. The Yoga Guru seems to be getting richer and bigger by the day at a blistering pace. But, he does not have a bank account, sleeps on the floor, has steamed vegetables twice a day and practices abstinence. There is also little doubt that some of his controversial views aside, he has consistently displayed a genuine interest in helping people attain good mental and physical health by making authentic yoga a part of their daily lives. He has become what he has not due to any gimmickry but because of the the real, positive changes that hundreds of thousands of people have experienced and are experiencing due to him.

Baba Ramdev has done nothing yet to show that he is another of those fake gurus who head for the West in search of riches and more. But one cannot help wondering why his gaze too has simply floated over and away from the huge continent of Africa. Is it colour and wealth that are pulling him, like others before him, to the West? Or is it something else, something akin to what Parmahansa Yogananda has written about in his autobiography?

Picture: The Guardian
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The surprise for many is not that Home Minister Chidambaram has stated the obvious but that there has been no violent reaction, considering he is a Tamilian. Delhiites have for long been known to be rude and lawless. But with the Commonwealth Games around the corner, Chidambaram wants the citizens of India's capital to undergo an "attitude makeover". “Vehicles jump red lights. People cross roads where they should not,” he says, “We are not living in a countryside; we are not living in a pastoral area. We are living in a city. Therefore, we must behave as the citizens of a big city”.

Last year, when Delhi's Lieutenant Governor Tejinder Khanna had said that “North Indians feel it is a matter of pride to break the law and get away without getting penalized,” there were loud protests from politicians belonging to UP, Bihar and Bengal. There is little doubt that, like Chidambaram, the guys he had in mind were only Punjabis and their closely related brethren of Haryana and Western UP, whose loud and aggressive psyche defines Delhi. Little has changed in over a year; they remain proud of the manner in which they act and speak. In fact if Khanna made them feel an inch taller by his statement, Chidambaram has probably added another!

There was a time when it used to be acknowledged without any trace of embarrassment that the only culture in North India was agriculture! Can’t blame them because ever since Alexander paid a visit to India well before Jesus was born, people of the region have virtually lived in what has been India’s permanent war zone where many famous and decisive battles have been fought for more than 2000 years.

For centuries, the focus has been on survival. That is why the spoken language, the body language and the overall behaviour have all developed to be aggressive, even offensive. As a matter of fact if someone is not aware of the tonal nuances of some dialects spoken in Delhi, he would be perfectly justified in apprehending that a guy is about to assault a woman when in fact he is telling her that he loves her!

Try speaking to policemen in Delhi and in areas around it. They take even greater pride in showing off their power and above-the-law attitude. For outsiders used to more ‘civilized’ inter-personal interactions, the experience can actually be traumatic. In the Army too, officers joining regiments having troops from areas around and to the west of Delhi have to be prepared for the ‘culture shock’ that they will be exposed to when interacting with their men who need a ‘different’ approach to remain on the right side of discipline. Needless to say, their fighting abilities are naturally inborn.

They have learnt the hard way that they have to get ahead, whatever it takes. Anything that can be taken, is theirs to take by right. Any rule or law that holds them up, be it a queue or a red light or any such, is theirs to break by right.

Delhiites are not rude and arrogant because they still live in a pastoral society as Chidambaram thinks. Nor can their behaviour be explained by copy-pasting the concept of 'amoral familism' from Italy like Ashish Nandy has done. If the objective is to get them to effect real changes in their behaviour, Commonwealth Games or not, 'soft' solutions based on such premises will not yield desired results.

It is the misdirected "pride" of Delhiites that has to worked on and channelised. Once that is successfully done, their transformation will be rapid.

Let me say what the media cannot, for obvious reasons: The President of India has "blackmailed" the Congress party.

Only those living on another planet will argue that Rajendra Shekhawat, son of President Pratibha Devisingh Patil, could have literally arm twisted the Congress into giving him a ticket to contest in the forthcoming Assembly elections in Maharashtra without his mother's full backing. Both know well that she will not be President when the elections are held next: it was now or never for them to claim Amravati as the President's family jagir. The amount of pressure that must have been brought to bear upon the Congress is evident from the fact that Shekhawat has displaced minister for finance and energy Sunil Deshmukh who has won four elections from this constituency.

When the constitutional head of a country displays such impropriety, to put it mildly, it is no less than a big nail in the coffin of its system of governance. Unfortunately, such nails are being driven almost every day with a disturbing nonchalance that must shock every right thinking Indian.

But why blame Pratibha Patil? She is what she is and everyone knew that before she was picked for the top job personally by Sonia Gandhi.

The real question is: why was a person who seemed to be mired in scams and having a history of allegations of financial impropriety and nepotism, picked in the first place? And that too over the likes of APJ Abdul Kalam? There are many who say that the Congress was not looking for a President at all; a pliable and partisan rubber stamp is all that it wanted, no matter how tainted or unfit for the nation's top job. The same thing happened in the case of the Chief Election Commissioner; the Congress chose Naveen Chawla despite very serious charges of corruption and partisanship that were levelled against against him ever since he was made Election Commissioner.

This development also raises the larger question about where India's democracy is headed, and whether we should call it a democracy at all any longer? The reins of the nation are passing into the hands of a few hundred political gharanas who are taking the place of the princely families that ruled India for centuries. That is what has already happened in Pakistan with disastrous results.

Why have things come to the stage where even the President is compelled to throw all constitutional propriety and morality out of the large windows of Rashtrapati Bhawan to ensure dynastic succession? It is because politics has become the best vehicle to acquire untold riches and power quickly. With so much available for the asking so easily, no questions asked, once someone makes it big, he has no choice but to ensure that his family continues to enjoy that for generations to come.

In an earlier post, I had argue that the proposal to reserve 33% seats for women in Parliament will not empower women at all; it will only make political gharanas even more powerful and restrict the pie of political power and pelf to very few political families, and make a total mockery of democracy. What the President has done should leave no doubt in any one's mind any more.

Is there any hope that things will get better?

Long ago, it seems, the BJP emerged as a vibrant alternative to the Congress. People may say it was because of aggressive 'Hindutva'. While that may have helped the party to quickly increase its footprint in the country, I think many more people were attracted to it because of two USPs that set it apart from the Congress. One was that there was no dynasty in the party and the second was that its leaders were seen as honest and effective.

Let us not forget that at one time there was a very strong anti-Gandhi family undercurrent in this country. Many people deeply resented the manner in which that dynasty had turned the party of Mahatma Gandhi into its personal jagir. Similarly, there were many Indians who despised the total absence of honesty in most leaders of that party.

The BJP was the first national alternative that promised a real change along both these dimensions. Unfortunately the party is now no longer distinguishable from the Congress. Two successive defeats should have taught the BJP the right lessons but they haven't. Greed has claimed it too. In the bargain, the party has most foolishly shot itself in the foot and helped the Congress legitimise and perpetuate the dynastic rule and unbridled corruption that define it, and that Indians once wanted to rid themselves of, but have now accepted with resignation.

That is why even the President has been emboldened to virtually extort her share of the dynastic pie in India's political landscape. She knows only too well that there is no leader or party now that can claim a moral high ground and tear her apart, much less offer the alternative that this country desperately needs.

When ordinary citizens start justifying what the President has done by saying that even wives of criminals locked in jail are given tickets, you get the sinking feeling that the erosion of the nation's values is now almost complete. India is inexorably sliding into an abyss of corruption and public immorality from which it cannot emerge unscathed. Management guru CK Prahalad is right: India will have to face a volcano. Sooner or later.

"Mr. Sharma, can you comment on this damning article appeared in Times London . Our politicians, bureaucrats have already crossed lines into Criminality with their corruption and inefficiency, now our High flying media has joined them with gross delinquency of "basic duty" by not reporting on this. We the people of India are equally responsible..."

How does one respond to such a question asked by an Indian who is deeply upset by the stark reality of the conspicuous poverty that afflicts over 880 million Indians, in the light of the vulgar and conspicuous consumption flaunted by their affluent chosen representatives? Does one agree with him that the leaders elected by these poor - the rich don't give a damn about voting - are no less than criminals because of their corrupt ways? Or does one take the line of the urban rich, exemplified by media tycoon Prannoy Roy, who ask as to what is wrong if political leaders stay in five star hotels and otherwise splurge, as long as they are spending their own money?

Is it in order to view businessmen, CEOs, dons and politicians through the lens of the same money? That is indeed what many are doing, to justify the extravagance of politicians. Should politicians not be accountable to their "employees and customers" like CEOs are? If in a "company" of 1.3 billion people, more than 67% have a sub-human existence at less than $ 2 a day, should a little over a thousand of its top executives living in Delhi happily splurge tens of thousands of that amount, whether out of tax payers' money or their own earnings? Should not their pay and perks and lifestyles be linked to their pathetic performance due to which the income of so many 'employees' remains so low, 62 years on?

That brings us to another question. Where have much of the earnings of most of these politicians come from anyway? How have politicians who have no occupation other than politics become multi-millionaires? The rich Sachin Pilot, for example, is the son of a middle class Air Force pilot who joined politics. The late Pramod Mahajan, who was shot by his brother over money, manifestly 'made' thousand of crores as a politician, not an industrialist, if rumours are true; he had no other source of income, one hears. Jagan Reddy, the overnight-rich-businessman-turned-politician son of YSR Reddy, could certainly not have become anywhere close to a multi-billionaire had he been just another businessman operating in an honest environment. The examples are endless and well known. Everyone knows that barring say a Shashi Tharoor or Vijay Mallya, who earned good money before they got into politics, there will hardly be an Indian politician who has become wealthy as a politician by honest means.

Worse than the conspicuous consumption of these leaders is the "austerity drive" that has recently been launched by the government, for only a year, because of the drought. Ironically, had the government kept quiet, much information about the colossal waste of tax payers' money by politicians would have never come to light, along with the fact that this drive is just a farce to con India's people.

Sections of the media have been and are sleeping with politicians and political parties, no doubt. Let us not forget that the media is another business that has to survive and grow in the thoroughly corrupt environment that many, including the UN, have spoken about repeatedly. Every one knows that in India things don't move unless the system is "oiled" well. What better way to do it than keep the really powerful politicians in power really close?

Notwithstanding the above constraint, we must accept that there still are some in the media who can speak, and have done so, even if guardedly. They are the ones who have told India that this whole drive is a farce. Let us start from the very top. Sonia Gandhi travelled Economy Class once to Mumbai with heavy security. Sagarika Ghose told us that she saved Rs 7,500. Rahul Gandhi travelled similarly protected by train and, as per some channels, 'saved' Rs 445. Karan Thapar asked the question that if Rahul Gandhi really feels that politicians have a duty to be austere, then "why is he, a bachelor, living in...one of the largest government owned bungalows...he is not even entitled to it". MJ Akbar has, in similar vein, called this austerity an eyewash and asked as to why Tharoor, Krishna and Nilekani should not be made to contribute the money that they were spending from their pockets for their hotel bills to the Prime Minister's Relief Fund!

It may be recalled that Rajiv and Sanjay used to stay with their mother, Indira Gandhi. Today, Sonia, Rahul and Priyanka occupy three sprawling bungalows that must cost the government a huge packet to maintain and secure. If the Gandhis genuinely identify with the 880 million poor they represent and are sincere about cutting out wasteful expenditure, then the family should stay together in one bungalow. Robert Vadra, who faces no security threat, should also be taken off the SPG protectee list. Many crore rupees, not a few hundred, will be saved. But no, Rahul Gandhi will talk of only the khadi kurta pajama that he wears to define 'austerity'.

It is not that all in the media have done their bit. As far as I know, there has been no meaningful linking of the conspicuous consumption of the politicians and this austerity drive with the extreme poverty that has now been reported by Times London and earlier by others. And as always, there are the usual suspects in the media who are fuming at the security being provided to politicians, except the Gandhis, of course. Then there those who actually are grateful to Sonia Gandhi's for the austerity drive, and who resent politicians not for their filthy spending or for travelling first class, but for the special treatment that they get at airports. That is the only place where media maharajahs and maharanis lose out to them!

For many in India's media, India is no more than an exclusive bubble that contains them and politicians alone. Of late, film stars too have made an entry - with great TRPs, they bring in the moolah for the media, don't they? 880 million Indians live on another planet.

"Also look at the pic on the article.... Is this the symbolism of British media.... was there a need to put such a striking and appalling picture on the web page...", asks the same agitated Indian. In my view, the photograph that graphically depicts "India's damned generation" is apt for it. It has hurt him because it has forced him to confront an ugly reality that he and I and many others want to wish away, and don't want the West at least to tell us about. We desperately want to believe only that India is firmly on its way to becoming an economic giant. We want to see the gleaming Delhi Metro but not the poor shitting by the sides of the railway tracks; we want to talk of Mumbai as India's commercial capital but not as a city where 54.1% people live in slums. To top it, very few of us know or even care about the grind that life is for the poor in rural India.

How far our politicians have gone from the people and how arrogant they have become about their extravagant lifestyles is best exemplified by Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel who says mockingly about the austerity drive: "at least we have to appear to be austere, if nothing else". How things have changed in the last sixty years. Democratically elected leaders have become rulers, royalty, above and separate from the people whose voice they were meant to be. No wonder a media personality says: "Hypocrisy is essential for public life". Hypocrites and worse in politics have little to fear. Powerful sections of the media understand their predicament and are one with them too.

But, it is no use blaming the media and the politicians alone. Conspicuous consumption is existing gleefully with conspicuous poverty only because all of us have let it take root. We have allowed politicians to deflect our attention from their criminal ways to issues of caste, region and religion, knowing full well that they are not going to add even a rupee to the recurring income of the really needy even as the coffers of the greedy are rapidly filled. Also, as some of us have moved up the ladder of prosperity, we have conveniently forgotten that many, many more remain at the very bottom, filling their stomachs on empty slogans like "garibi hatao" and gullibly believing in fake austerity drives undertaken by their so-called leaders.

So, if we really don't want to see disturbing pictures of stark poverty staring at us, we all have to do our bit to either make our leaders change themselves, or change our leaders. Till that happens, for 880 million Indians, things are going to change very slowly indeed.

Picture: Timesonline
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Readers may also read: Austerity and aam aadmi: games politicians play!

He was asking for it. Shashi Tharoor, back to India after decades in the US, forgot that he was not President Obama, India was not the US and the Congress party was not the Democratic party. So, when he got onto Twitter and started tweeting regularly to an ever increasing number of followers, the Congress High Command would not have been amused. And when the number of his followers crossed one lakh, alarm bells would have started ringing. Outside of the Nehru-Gandhi family, Tharoor, a political novice, had become the first leader to connect directly to so many Indians, and that too interactively on a daily basis.

His soaring popularity, highlighted regularly by the media, not only created a new star in the Congress overnight but also made many Indians acutely aware of the distance and the disconnect that existed between them and the much more youthful Rahul Gandhi, the uncrowned king of the country.

The High Command had to do something. Sure enough, it reacted a few days back by publicly ordering him out of the comforts of the five star hotel he was staying in, and in to the rather humble environs of the Kerala House where not only was there no gymnasium, Tharoor even had to eat food in the canteen like, and with, the real "aam aadmi". It is clear that Tharoor did not get the real message then. That is why not only did he send a tweet to his fast growing followers, that he was paying from his pocket and that he had been staying in a five star hotel for 100 days because it had a gym and gave him privacy, but also kept tweeting regularly.

The Congress was not going to let him get away! It was just waiting for that inevitable slip that would give it just the opportunity that it needed to censure him even more severely and put a firm end to his twittering ways. Yesterday, he did that and more. Replying to a tweet about travelling in Economy Class as a part of the austerity drive launched by the Congress High Command, he tweeted: "Absolutely, in cattle class out of solidarity with all our holy cows."

The Congress party has hit back hard saying that his remarks were "unacceptable given the sensitivity of all Indians and not in sync with our political culture". The "political culture" bit is the operative part. How can any Congressman dare to even remotely compare Sonia Gandhi with a cow? Criticising the party's Holy Family is blasphemy!

The effect on Shashi Tharoor has been electric. He has not posted a single tweet on Twitter for over 22 hours now, the last one being "RIP Patrick Swayze". Perhaps just the right tweet to let his own Twitter page rest in peace, leaving behind 164, 548 disappointed followers.

Yesterday, I had penned a short poem on hearing about the commotion created by his "cattle class" tweet. Although I had posted in India Tweets then itself, I am posting it here again:

There was this smart guy called Tharoor
Who came to India ready to say 'Huzoor'
Not knowing then that for first class
He would soon lose his long held pass

Now no more than chattel
He has to suffer class cattle
And to the wishes of the holy cow
Morning and evening humbly bow

Today, I have written a limerick in similar vein. Here it is:

Feel sorry for minister-tweeter Shashi Tharoor
Who tweeted austerity was a "cattle class" rule
The enraged holy cow
Shoved a horn and how
That indiscretion in searing pain he does rue!

I am sure this is not the end of the story. I will not be surprised if he soon finds himself travelling in real "cattle class", a bullock cart, on the the dirt tracks that you find in India's hinterland. How soon do you think he will move to the Rural Development ministry?
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The stature of a leader can often be accurately determined not by observing the effusive praise showered on him by his die-hard supporters but by carefully examining the vicious attacks launched against him by his die-harder detractors. By that measure, there can be no two opinions that Narendra Modi is the BJP's tallest leader by many miles, and has been so for some time now.

Pretences apart, no one knows this better than the Congress party. Even more importantly, that party also knows that it has no weapon to counter him, and that if he ever gets to that chair in Delhi, governance will take centre-stage in a manner that will most likely marginalise the Congress nationally in almost the same manner as it has in Gujarat.

Let us tackle the ghost of 2002 straightaway. Those riots in Gujarat were not the first in India, nor are they going to be the last. If one goes by statistics, many more Sikhs and Muslims have been killed in Congress-ruled states and in Delhi, and plenty of its Neros have played more than the fiddle, often deliberately. But, not a single one of them, Rajiv Gandhi included, has been subject to the kind of calumny that Modi has faced and will continue to face.

Let us get one more thing straight: this onslaught has little to do with 2002; it has everything to do with the fear that the Congress has no answer to Modi along any other dimension. He is scrupulously honest; he does not fake austerity - he lives it; he has shown that a clear-headed leader can deliver good governance even with the existing system; he has put Gujarat on an unprecedented path of explosive and inclusive economic growth; he has no family to promote and is manifestly devoted selflessly to his state and its people; he cannot be corrupted and does not tolerate those who can be.

The culture of governance that Modi has put in place in Gujarat is almost the exact opposite of the culture of unbridled corruption and sycophancy that the Congress party has spawned during its long years of reign at the Centre and the states. Things have reached a stage where corruption at the highest political and bureaucratic levels has become institutionalised as an entitlement. The whole nation knows that these guys are becoming rich by foul means alone. Such systems and laws have been put in place that it is almost impossible to catch anyone, and even if caught, little can be done. Terrorists and corrupt leaders cannot find a better environment where they can so fearlessly go about their business of destroying a nation from within.

In such a scenario, if leader emerges who is honest as well as intolerant of the nonsense that has been passing off as sense for decades, the people of this country will have before them, for the first time ever, the real alternative that they have been looking for but have been unable to find. The BJP's decline at the national level has, in no small measure, to do with its embracing of the corrupt and hollow value system that India associates with the Congress. That is why in states where its Chief Ministers are focused on governance and probity, the party remains strong.

The results of the recent Assembly by-polls bear this out. Within months of its morale-sapping defeat in the Lok Sabha elections, the BJP has done surprisingly well, unlike the communists whose downhill ride has only accelerated after the Lok Sabha debacle. In MP, the BJP has wrested on seat from the Congress which has retained one. In Uttarakhand, it has wrested the lone seat from the Congress.

But it is in Gujarat that the results have dramatically defined once again what the Congress and its "Bhaare ke tattoos" (hired ponies) in the "intelligentsia", media and other powerful organs, who have benefitted disproportionately due to Congress rule, are mortally afraid of. Of the seven seats that went to the polls, six were held by the Congress. Now it has just two while the BJP's tally has gone from one to five. This result has come in despite Modi not campaigning in any constituency personally.

No matter what anyone might say, it is difficult to believe that magistrate Tamang accidentally released his report on the Ishrat Jahan killing just before the polls. It is also difficult to believe that the media coincidentally went into hyper-excited overdrive to claim Modi's head because of a fake encounter killing by Gujarat police. But what must shock every Indian's conscience is the fact that sections of the media and the Congress were willing to go to the extent of sleeping with the LeT only to discredit Modi. It needs to be mentioned that the LeT is a Pakistani terror outfit that is waging war against India with the full patronage of the Pakistani establishment, and has already killed thousands of innocent Indians. It also executed Mumbai 26/11. Sleeping with this enemy of India is only one small step short of giving it a "supari" for Modi.

Does this shock you? It must. But remember, this has happened in India's history even earlier. The British, for example, would have found the going very difficult had India's selfish and myopic kings not sided with them only to defeat other Indian kings. Now too, do you not similarly hear Indians who find Pakistan and Pakistanis more friendly and "Just Like Us" than they do their political opponents? Do you not hear them talk about giving disastrous concessions to Pakistan on Kashmir, possibly in the fond hope that it will prevent future loss of votes due to terrorism? Did they even react to the exposure by the SIT of Teesta Setalvad, their award-winning loud voice, for cooking up tales of macabre and wanton killings, and tutoring and threatening witnesses to fraudulently portray Modi and Hindus at large as cold-blooded rapists and murderers?

Personally, like everyone else, I do not know how guilty Narendra Modi is or Rajiv Gandhi was for the killings in Gujarat and Delhi respectively. Unlike some sponsored fellow Indians, I am not going to pass judgment on Modi like they have and tell the whole world that he is a mass murderer. They have a lot to lose personally if Modi comes to power in Delhi; I have nothing to gain or lose, except as an Indian citizen. Like them, I also know that Modi will most likely prove to be the best Prime Minister India has ever had, not for Hindus but all Indians. Like them, I also believe that Modi as PM will bring about a paradigm shift in the manner that this country is governed. Like them, I also know that it will be the death knell for many of them. That is why they have to do everything they can to destroy him before he gets to Delhi.

Since they cannot find any chink in his armour at all, they have to keep 2002 alive, no matter what, till he is brought down.

The next Lok Sabha elections, barring unforeseen developments, will be held in 2014. Four and a half years is a very long time. The misfired cacophony over Ishrat Jahan is a clear indicator that there is no limit that Modi's political opponents and their henchmen will not cross to ensure that he is not the BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate in that election. The stakes are so high that there will, without an iota of doubt, be very serious attempts to physically eliminate him if nothing sticks in the manner that his opponents want.

Whether you like Narendra Modi or not, do not underestimate what he is up against. Will he be able to survive this remorseless, fanatic onslaught, as he has till now, and lead his party in the 2014 elections?

If there was ever a 'Mission Impossible' for Modi to accomplish, it is this.

Austerity is the latest mantra of UPA 2, the government of the "Aam Aadmi' (Common Man). After it was revealed by the Indian Express that the only real accomplishment of two of its ministers in the first 100 days of this government was that they were enjoying the warm hospitality of five star hotels, the Congress High Command had to order them out in full public view, despite their claims that they were footing the bills from their own bulging pockets.

Not satisfied, the Congress High Command directed the Prime Minister to call a special meeting of the Union Cabinet, to reign in those ministers who were living ostentatiously on the tax payers' money. Since the image of the Congress party was at stake, and some heavy weight ministers were much opposed to the idea of cutting down on their privileges, Rahul Gandhi was deputed by Sonia Gandhi to attend this meeting as a Special Observer to ensure that the slightly built Dr Manmohan Singh was not overwhelmed by them.

Here are some experts from that stormy fictitious meeting. Any similarity with what happened in the actual meeting is in your imagination:

PM: Gentlemen, Madam is very upset that at this time when the nation is facing severe drought, you guys are enjoying at the expense of tax payers. This must stop forthwith.

Pawar: Where is the drought? It is raining heavily now. I had a tough time reaching here in time.

Tharoor: I would be ashamed if I was spending people's money. I am spending my own savings. My one lakh Twitter followers also know this.

PM: This is not the UN. This is India. You can't be seen living in such luxury, and that too for 100 days.

Tharoor: But I need privacy, more than anything else, which Kerala House cannot give. You see my wife stays in Europe...

PM: Oh! That is why you have been frequenting the hotel gym too! But then why are you wearing a lungi?

Tharoor: My non-Twitter followers must also identify with me. Must they not feel that I am one of them now, even though I have never stayed in Kerala and never will?

Pawar: This austerity stuff is nonsense. We are the government of the aam admi. I think you have forgotten that we rule the aam aadmi; we are not him.

PM: Pawar ji, we know that there is probably no politician who is richer than you. But, what difference will it make if you travel economy class?

Pawar: How can you expect me to sit next to an aam aadmi?

Rahul: I think as politicians we have to have to make austerity a habit. See, I wear only kurta pajamas.

Pawar: So do I. But that is for "dikhawa" only, like Tharoor has just implied. You think the aam aadmi does not know how rich we are? Look at your designer watch, glasses, shoes...

Rahul: This is all imitation stuff, picked up by the SPG commandos for me from the Sarojini Nagar pavement bazaar.

Farooq: I can't travel in economy class; my family has ruled Kashmir for decades. I cannot lower my dignity.

Rahul: Mine has ruled the whole of India. We all know we are rulers, but the aam aadmi still believes innocently that we are leaders. We cannot totally ignore them openly.

PM: Farooq ji and Pawar ji. Madam's orders are clear. Either you fall in line or quit.

Pawar: Oh!... Actually I don’t mind travelling economy, but I am too big to fit into those small seats. Why don't you accept an additional 1% pay cut over and above the huge 20% you have already imposed so heartlessly?

Mamata: You should "eat" only what you need. But your appetite seems limitless. How "big" is BCCI?

Pawar: You know nothing about agriculture...the prices of sugar and pulses have exceeded my most optimistic expectations!

Farooq: My long legs too can't fit in that small leg space that economy class offers.

Mamata: Why are you all talking of flying? You should be travelling by Indian Railways.

Sibal: This is the age of space travel and you want to take us back to Gandhi?

Mamata: The aam aadmi can afford to travel only in trains.

Sibal: The food in the first class of Rajdhani is unpalatable and the linen ordinary.

Mamata: First class? You must travel second class only.

Sibal: These days even the aam aadmi does not travel by second class, only those who fall even below the human line do.

Mamata: I do

Sibal: It shows!

Rahul: It is not just about travelling. You have to change where you stay too.

PM: And where do you want us to stay Rahul ji?

Rahul: Manmohan ji, not you. Luckily you are PM. But all others need to share the pain and difficulties faced by the poorest of the poor.

Pawar: I am not going to stay in the house of any Kalawati. No village cot can take my weight.

Rahul: Sleeping on the floor has great benefits. Particularly if you have to endure it only about once a year, with TV cameras rolling and friendly TV channels playing the same clip one hundred thousand times.

Pawar: Look Rahul, you have never lived among the people ever. You need to discover what India is. We already know it. Most of us have come up the hard way. We've been through all this.

Rahul: What about your kids, who are around my age?

PM: Thank God none of mine are in politics.

Pawar: You can take all our kids along on these one-night stands. They are just like you. Mould India's next gen royals the way you want to.

Soni: We all must go too. That will be great for tourism, you know. That one stay in a dalit home by UK's Home Secretary along with Rahul ji has led to sharp rise in dalit tourism! Mayawati is worried.

Pawar: Leave us alone. We can't be a party to this hypocritical drama at our age.

PM: They will all agree to your proposal Rahul ji. After all the aam aadmi must know that we are with him.

Rahul: They don't sound like they will.

PM: Friends, next year there will be plenty of rain. No austerity after that. Sharad ji, please agree to tighten your public belt for one year. Rahul ji is not asking anyone to touch that unseen belt!

Rahul: The Congress is thinking of going it alone in Maharashtra in the coming elections...

Pawar: Err...I have put on a little extra weight. My doctor has also asked me to take care...one year is fine. I will manage.

Rahul: That's great. The meeting is over.

Pawar: A small request Rahul ji. Defence and Home Ministers have their own planes. Let us buy our planes too. Then the aam aadmi will never get to see us flying first class and feel jealous.

Farooq: There is the question of security also, you know!

Rahul: Now you are talking. Manmohan ji, on security grounds, please let all cabinet ministers buy planes for themselves. If they need a hundred commandos to keep them safe and away from the aam aadmi on the ground, surely they need to be put in a bubble in the air too!

Tharoor: What about junior ministers like me? I need privacy more than security!

Rahul: A pool of planes should also be created for Junior Ministers for the time being. No more commercial flights for ministers. Can't afford to actually become aam aadmis, can we? That is not what the business of politics is about.

All (except the PM): Indeed! Thank you Sir!

Rahul: But to get all this, you will have to make a small sacrifice: accept another 10% cut in your salaries!

Sibal: That is a bit too much, considering you have just given a bonanza to government servants through the Pay Commission. I will double Pawar ji's offer: we'll take a 2% cut.

Pawar: We will take that 10% cut if you allow us to raise our salaries by 100%.

Rahul: You guys have the power to vote yourself any increase, and have done that many times already. One more time won't hurt. But do that only after three months.

Farooq: That is a very reasonable suggestion. We agree.

Rahul: Excellent! Ambika (Soni), take out massive advertisements in all papers across the country saying that all ministers have decided to contribute an additional 10% of their salary to the Rajiv Gandhi Drought Relief Fund (RGDRF).

Soni: But Rahul ji, that will cost much, much more than their contribution!

Sibal: Silly lady, that will be debited from a different head. Not a penny will be paid out of the RGDRF. If the aam aadmi and the not-so-aam types don't get to know about this great sacrifice being made by us, what is the use of taking any cut?

Rahul: Since all doubts have been cleared, you can declare the meeting over Manmohan ji.

All: Raj Kumar Rahul ji ki Jai! Jai Ho!

Rahul: Tharoor meet me separately after this. I need to talk to you about this privacy thing in private.
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4. Azhar, Sanjay, Crime and politics
5. Political debates: the Slumdog effect!
6. What will Raj target next to 'take out' Pakistan?
7. Gilani, Durrani, Kiyani, Biryani and the Butcher!
8. The 'BIG' war between Mukesh and Anil!
9. Gas Wars!
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It was just the kind of news that excites media tycoon Prannoy Roy. The timing too was near perfect, state elections looming. Everything in place to resume a no-holds barred personal attack on Narendra Modi on the Nine O'clock News on NDTV on September 08, 2009, and project Ishrat Jahan as the innocent teenager killed in cold blood by him. Suddenly, it all went wrong. So wrong, in fact, that Roy could not prevent himself from lamenting the fact that the Gujarat government had "dug up" a Home Ministry affidavit that claimed that Ishrat Jahan was indeed a terrorist.

What has gone wrong with the media? Is terrorism nothing more than a tool to score cheap political points that do not befit even chai wallas? Must every action of the police in Gujarat be seen as a personal indictment of Chief Minister Narendra Modi? How can the media talk of justice when it wants the nation to treat every terrorist, including Ajmal Kasab, as innocent till proved guilty finally by the Supreme Court, but has already pronounced Modi a mass murderer? How can these fake defenders of law expect the nation to accept the enormous delay in sentencing of a handful of those who wage war against the nation, when they say in the very next breath that they cannot wait for the law to pronounce its verdict on Modi only because it will take many years ?

Why is there near utter silence on fake killings in Congress-ruled states like Maharashtra, Manipur etc? Why does not anyone in the media talk about the stark fact that terrorism in Punjab would never have got over had Chief Minister Beant Singh, duly blessed by Rajiv Gandhi, not given Police Chief KPS Gill a free hand to deal with terrorists and even their families "summarily"? Who does not know that witnesses were afraid to testify against any terrorist, and the conviction rate in courts was so dismal that had Gill not taken charge in the manner he did, things would have been very different in Punjab today?

Did anyone ever try to cheaply politicise what the Punjab Police did then to destroy terrorism in Punjab? May be it was because, to India's good luck, these media tycoons were not around to turn every incident into a third-rate political fight between the Congress and Akali Dal etc. Had they been there like they are now, India would probably have not till today defeated that terrorism that at one stage had looked totally out of control.

A magistrate has reached a conclusion that Ishrat Jahan was killed in a fake encounter, under seemingly questionable circumstances. The Gujarat High court has, in fact, already pulled up magistrate Tamang and stayed his report. Will anyone be surprised if his judgment turns out to be political rather than legal? But is the media even taking that line of argument? Is this the first time a judge has been used as a political tool? Have people forgotten what Laloo Yadav did on becoming Railway Minister, and why?

Yesterday, stung by the blow of the affidavit, Prannoy Roy could not stop himself from taunting Ravi Shankar Prasad of the BJP by asking him if his party would accept a CBI inquiry into the fake encounter. Does he not himself know what the CBI has been doing at the behest of the Congress in the cases of Mulayam Yadav and Mayawati? Does he think those who are watching him don't know?

Why are people like him not appalled by the cancerous politicisation of all institutions of the government that is destroying the faith of Indians in the police, bureaucracy and the judiciary? Why do they almost always speak on issues in a manner that appears to benefit the Congress directly or indirectly? Are these guys really journalists? Or are they hidden spokesmen of a political party, like, say, Chandan Mitra openly is? Or, worse, are they now businessmen who are additionally constrained to take the line that lubricates their growth and makes them richer?

I must also mention that on many occasions, watching some of these tycoons and anchors one does not feel one is watching national news. It is as if one is watching a few close friends gossiping over a few drinks at home about common enemies. It is evident that the Lakshman Rekha that should separate the media and the politicians has got almost totally blurred in India. Intimate social intermingling with politicians has manifestly rendered media luminaries incapable of saying what they must, with the truth, objectivity and honour that their profession demands.

Every Indian will agree that if Ishrat Jahan was killed in a fake encounter, the cops responsible for the killing should be severely punished. But, for the media to almost deliberately try and convert every killing of a Muslim into a divisive and communal vote-catching opportunity on behalf of the Congress, is a development that is going to cost the country heavily. India's independent and free media should have been in the vanguard of a movement to steer the country away from the politicisation and resultant destruction of almost all institutions of the state. Unfortunately, sections of it are hell bent on using their platforms to do exactly the opposite, without being responsible in any manner for the outcome of their words and reports.

The affidavit that, for Prannoy Roy, was an embarrassment to the Congress has nothing to do with Congress party all. Should it not be treated as an objective, apolitical assessment of officials of the Home Ministry, on a matter concerning national security? That is what such documents should be, irrespective of the political party in power. But, by publicly making it look like a political document, just because its line is similar to that of a state government he manifestly hates with all his heart and soul, Roy has hit one more nail in the coffin of the permanent institutions and structures that must form the bedrock of the government of any nation.

Unfortunately, even as I write this, NDTV is continuing its affidavit-bashing on the political ground that it will help Modi! So blinded are some sections of the media and some media personalities by their rigid biases and political affiliations that they will not let officials do what they are supposed to do in the interest of the nation and to ensure the safety and security of innocent citizens. They want everyone to tow their political line, no quarters given, to hell with integrity. God knows where we are headed.

Chinese intrusions into Indian territory are not only increasing disturbingly, they are also occurring in new areas, besides becoming becoming more and more audacious, as if to taunt India. Yet, the response of those who are ru(i)nning India's Ministry of Defence (MOD) continues to be like that of a petrified lamb that has been unexpectedly confronted by a tiger. But even by their standards, the way they have responded to the latest report of Chinese intrusion into India territory is shocking.

In the latest incident, Chinese troops entered nearly 1.5 kilometers into Indian territory, painted rocks with red spray paint, and wrote "China" in Cantonese on them. What makes this intrusion really serious is that this is the first time since Independence that the Chinese have entered this area and graphically claimed it as their own. The 22,420 ft Mount Gya is located at the tri-junction of Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh and Tibet. Its boundary was marked during the British era and regarded as the international boundary between the two countries.

The Chinese, as always, have rejected India's accusation as groundless and about something that has not happened at all, along with a stereotyped statement that China is committed "to seek a fair and mutually acceptable solution through peaceful and friendly negotiation". The Chinese response is perfectly justified because that country has no illusions about the real estate it must grab by force at the right time, to complete the unfinished agenda and humiliation of 1962. So, it has been systematically and relentlessly projecting its national will, and creating "evidence" all along the more than 4,000 kilometer long border. This will be used later, backed by photographs surely, to justify its occupation by saying that these areas always were part of China.

What does India's MOD have to say? "This incursion is not a major issue". That is not all. It has also given the Chinese a completely clean chit on the logic that there is a difference in perception of the Line of Actual Control (LAC). But the icing on this cake of abject surrender is the statement that "incursions happen from both sides". This "proactive" admission has been made even when the Chinese have not accused Indian troops of a violation, just to make sure that they don't bare their real fangs yet. Have we ever heard of China accusing Indian troops of repeatedly intruding into Tibet like India does almost every second day? (It might start now). Is it not Chinese troops alone who keep entering deep into Indian territory repeatedly on the quiet to leave behind tell-tale signs of their presence, to deliberately let the Indians know that, as far as they are concerned, those cold and inhospitable areas belong to China?

No doubt there are some parts in the difficult terrain along the LAC where it is not easy to identify the watershed. But, will anyone answer as to why all doubts and disputes pertain to areas that fall on India's side of the perceived watershed? Have the Indians ever dared to claim even an inch of Tibet that is now China thanks primarily to the fatal strategic blindness of Nehru?

China's latest military doctrine states that "unresolved border disputes would be one reason for going to war". Its southwest border (with India) has also been identified as a potential theater of war. China has 14 neighbours. It had border disputes with most of them, including Russia. But over the years, it has solved its disputes with 12. The only ones that China has doggedly refused to resolve are the ones with India and Bhutan. Unlike Nehru, who simply wrote off "distant" Aksai Chin, the Chinese are unrelenting in their intention to grab even more land in remote and inhospitable areas which are far away from mainland China.

The latest incursion into Himachal Pradesh/Ladakh has never happened before. The decision to intrude so deep into this area surely would not have been taken locally. There is a significant political message in this display of national will. Is it not a major issue that should cause serious concern? One would like to believe that MOD's statement is for public consumption and that privately India is taking necessary steps to ensure that the Chinese do not dare to try a 1962 again.

Unfortunately, that is not true at all. The babus of MOD have already surrendered to the might of China and are seemingly content to patiently wait for it to put India out of the misery of border violations by grabbing Arunachal Pradesh and other claimed areas to settle the dispute once and for all. Which other MOD will actually pay glowing tributes to China as an "important player in global affairs", proceeding firmly ahead on its "well charted out goals"? In its annual report of 2008, the MOD, in fact, not only pretends that there is no threat from China but also lauds that country for "improving bilateral relations with its neighbouring countries at diplomatic, economic and military levels"! Even the Pentagon is concerned about China's military build up. Perhaps that is because it is in the hands of honest, nationalist professionals, and not unaccountable, time serving bureaucrats.

India's military leaders, unfortunately, are little better. They have meekly played along with the babus, despite knowing better as professionals and as leaders on whose command young sons of India are expected to die without asking why. There is a widespread belief within the services that successive Army Chiefs have sold their souls, and their country, out of greed for post retirement rehabilitation as Governors and Ambassadors. Present Army Chief Deepak Kapoor's very guarded statements and the ominous silence of his not-so-illustrious predecessors lends real credence to this belief that would be a cause of concern in any responsive military organisation. Little wonder these guys do not enjoy the kind of respect that real leaders of men do.

Such being the state of India's national security apparatus, does India have real options? A besieged fort cannot be held by firing flower bouquets from its cannons or by waiving the white flag every time a cannon ball hits it. Perhaps there is an unintended point in Chetan Bhagat's juvenile views. The way things are, India will do well to show great "statesmanship" and "good neighbourliness" by unilaterally giving Kashmir to Pakistan, and Arunachal Pradesh and other claimed areas to China.

Why wait for lakhs of Indians to be slaughtered when you know that defeat is certain whenever the besieger decides to launch an assault? Admission before accusation must logically lead to surrender before attack. No?
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Readers may also like to read:
1. Facing the challenge of China's military modernisation
2. China and India:winning wars vs defending the country
3. India's 'Power': weakness=virtue, strength=immorality
4. China and India: bully and forever bullied
5. Democracy, morality and national interest
6. Myanmar lost to China: India's encirclement complete
7. Diplomacy cannot counter China's challenge
8. China gets dangerous, but nothing can move India

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Just four days back, I had written that the CBI, which had taken over the sensational Arushi murder case and claimed with much fanfare on July 11, 2008, that it had solved the case, was unlikely to file a charge sheet against any of the three accused whom they had arrested. On September 4, Vijay Mandal was granted bail by a court on the ground that the CBI had no proof to name him as an accused.

Today, India’s premier investigative agency has surprised the nation by throwing in the towel. It has finally admitted that it has found no proof against anyone in the case. Worse, it has announced a reward of Rs1 lakh for anyone who gives them further information in the case.

Even when the CBI hid claimed on July 11 that it had solved the case with arrest of Krishna, Rajkumar and Vijay Mandal, there were serious doubts in my mind about its claims because some vital points had been ignored. They were as relevant on that date as they are today and merit being repeated here:

• Nothing heard by the Talwars. The CBI had stated on July 11 that they had physically opened the door to Arushi’s room and found that nothing could be heard from her parents’ bedroom with the AC running. It was also mentioned that upon being assaulted by the accused, Arushi tried to shout, but she had a bad throat. The trespass into Arushi’s bedroom was not done by an individual making a careful entry. Four men under the influence of liquor entered her room in the still of the night, manifestly with the intention of sexually exploiting her. In her room, they even had a fight, due to which, as per the CBI, Hemraj left the room in a huff. Whether the other three did assault her sexually or not before or after hitting her with a blunt weapon is not clear. But, it needs no intelligence to understand that four hot-headed drunk men would have made enough of a racket in Arushi’s room for quite a while. Dr and Mrs Talwar were not sedated. It is really difficult to believe that they just did not hear the commotion, if not the muted cry from the bad throat of Arushi. Yet, the CBI chose not to subject Dr Talwar to a narco test. That too despite one of his polygraph tests not yielding a satisfactory result.

• Blood stains on Rajkumar’s shirt. The CBI has obviously not found incriminating bloodstains on Rajkumar’s shirt that they had sent for analysis. The question is: what about the shirts of Krishna and Mandal? Krishna was, as per his relatives, sleeping with them in a small room all through the night. If he did manage to quietly slip out, how come when he came back, he changed his clothes and hid those that were bloodstained, yet undiscovered, without anyone getting to know about it? What about Mandal’s ‘murder’ clothes? Where are the clothes that Dr Talwar was wearing that night?

• Destruction of all forensic evidence. No incriminating forensic evidence at all was found by either the police or the CBI from Arushi’s bedroom and the terrace where Hemraj was killed. Were three drunk guys having no criminal background so smart that they destroyed it all after committing the crime? Were Dr and Mrs Talwar so foolish and ignorant that they allowed all and sundry to enter Arushi’s room the day after the murder and destroy such evidence?

• Where are the mobiles and the murder weapon? This question was relevant on July 11. But the CBI chose to ignore it then. It is unanswered even today, despite the ‘confessions’ and ‘leads’ obtained during the narco tests. Without them, the CBI will look as foolish as the NOIDA police did earlier, and has no case.

The way both the NOIDA police and the CBI have bungled this case points to a very fundamental malaise that has hollowed the core of India’s ‘elite’ civil services that includes the IPS. In case after case, the professional incompetence and lack of integrity of India’s police officers has been exposed. Yet, nothing happens to them. Heads never roll. All that happens is that the concerned officers are removed from public and media glare for a while by transferring them to another place. Soon all is forgotten. And such officers continue to rise in rank and are entrusted with even more responsibility!

In the Arushi case, while the concerned IPS officers were transferred, one has not heard of even that action being taken against Arun Kumar who, on July 11, claimed that the CBI had found the real murderers and had given a clean chit to Dr Rajesh Talwar, till then the prime accused, without subjecting him to narco analysis like the other accused were.

Be warned. This is the kind of material that may well land up heading the BSF, CRPF, CBI, IB, RAW, NSG, NSC and more. Is it a surprise that 61 years after Independence, these ‘elite’ police officers have not been able to effect any fundamental organisational and functional changes in a 19th century police set up put in place by a colonial power to subjugate its subjects? If anything, they have made things worse for ordinary citizens with blatant corruption at all levels and an arrogance that would have embarrassed even the British of the Raj.

There is no agency beyond the CBI that can question it for its failures. India’s politicians, who should have had the vision and the responsibility to set things right, have led from the front to corrupt this and other organisations by using them as private agencies for petty and partisan political and personal purposes. When the real rot is right at the very top, how can you expect integrity and honesty from those below?

The Arushi murder case stinks. Something horribly wrong has been and is being done with a disturbing nonchalance. One cannot help shake the feeling that a lot of money has something to do with the botching up of what should have been the one of simplest of cases to solve.

• The Obama administration has notified the US Congress that Pakistan has modified US supplied Harpoon anti-ship missiles to hit land targets
• The US has also accused Pakistan of modifying US made P-3C Orion aircraft for land attack missions
• Chinese intrusions into India territory have shown an alarming increase
• Chinese military journals are getting increasingly hostile, reminding India of the 1962 debacle and warning India that the next time China "will not pull back 30 km" as it had then.
• A recent article in a quasi-official Chinese website says that it is in China's interest to break India into 20-30 pieces and that it must recover the 90,000 square km territory of Southern Tibet, or Arunachal Pradesh.
• China is aggressively trying to encircle India from all sides. It latest gas pipeline agreement with Myanmar to supply 100 billion cubic metres of gas annually is a huge step in that direction.
  

• How badly do we want Kashmir? At the cost of making colleges for the young generation in the country? At the cost of not doing irrigation projects for our farmers? At the cost of not building roads and power plants? At the cost of living in high inflation forever?
• We can have an alliance with another nation if the aim of defence is to protect our borders. For instance, America has a big need to ensure safety of its own borders and cut global terrorism. We can work with them — yes, by giving them some access to our country. For us, it can save costs of protecting ourselves...We may shudder at the presence of American involvement in our defence, but frankly what advantage could they gain against us if they help us protect our borders?...They have much to gain from our potential market for American products and cheap outsourcing... let’s outsource some of our defence to them, make them feel secure and save money for us. Having a rich, strong friend rarely hurt anyone.
• We need to have peace not only because it is a good thing — but also because we can’t afford to fight or stay prepared to fight for the next 20 years. We are hiring more security guards outside the house when there isn’t money to put the kids in school...Money spent on bullets doesn’t give returns, money spent on better infrastructure does.

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1. Facing the challenge of China's military modernisation
2. China and India:winning wars vs defending the country
3. India's 'Power': weakness=virtue, strength=immorality
4. China and India: bully and forever bullied
5. Democracy, morality and national interest
6. Myanmar lost to China: India's encirclement complete
7. Diplomacy cannot counter China's challenge
8. China gets dangerous, but nothing can move India
9. Musharraf's shockers on terror, Kashmir and Indian Muslims
10. India, learn how to get Pakistan to walk