SA'FAI' BEGINS, PURGE NEEDED

The whitewash, sa’fai’, of the damning Faigate revelations that have sinister implications for India, both internally and in its responses to Pakistan, has begun. And, as expected, the usual suspects are at it.

Prannoy Roy and Barkha Dutt’s NDTV, chastened by "guilt-tweets" of Ms. Dutt before and after the Radia tapes rash hit and claimed her, continuing histrionics notwithstanding, has chosen to remain silent lest it is unable to pull its smelly foot out of its mouth subsequently. Their burden has been taken on by two old friends of the channel, the publicly exposed Vir Sanghvi and the yet to be Shekhar Gupta.

Vir Sanghvi, now reduced to writing on the net, the very medium he derided at the peak of his wholly "paid" arrogance, has written another Radia piece “ dressed up” to look as a pat in the back for India, but meant to exonerate his many corrupt liberal friends who have been found to be anti-national as well. If you read the whole piece, you will find that Sanghvi has been unsparing in exposing the well-known game plan of Pakistan – which, let us be clear, means the ISI, which in turn means Pakistan’s Army Chief – for Kashmir which, as he brings out, India has been been warning the world about.

Yet, Mr. Sanghvi wants us to believe that the real issue about Faigate is that Ghulam Nabi Fai's organisation, the Kashmir American Council, was “created by the Pakistani state to con Americans!” You don’t expect men of Vir Sanghvi’s integrity to tell us why the ISI wanted to con the Americans over Kashmir. Because if he does that then he knows he cannot conjure the lame and disgraceful defence that he offers, in just a couple of lines, for Indian liberals and peaceniks, among them Justice Sachar, author of the infamous Sachar Commision report, who were regulars at Fai’s Kashmir conferences that were micro-managed by the sinister ISI. They, he claims, were unaware of Fai’s sources of funding and whitewashes their culpability by saying: “it is sad and unfortunate that they were duped into lending legitimacy to an ISI-sponsored initiative.”

The Editor of Indian Express, Shekhar Gupta, has, for once, beaten Vir Sanghvi and conjured an even more absurd defence of the indefensible, but one that some of those caught will try to employ to escape the accusation of committing plain treason.

Gupta rubbishes Sanghvi's line that those who enjoyed Fai’s hospitality were unaware that he was a Pak/ISI agent. This is what he says of Fai: “But all of it, the injured air of Kashmiri victimhood, and Americanised English would not fool you about who he exactly was, and what precisely he was after. He was a Pakistani lobbyist for “their” Kashmir cause, leading a very cleverly constructed over ground support base for the malevolent movement that was picking strength in the early nineties. You would have to be utterly nuts, delusional or smoking some awful prohibited substance to not figure this out. Would you have known he was funded by the ISI? Again, you had to be from another planet to believe anything else.”

As every donkey and his son knows, Pakistan’s Kashmir policy is driven wholly by the military and its outstanding covert operations outfit, the ISI, that has been fermenting trouble in the Valley and other parts of India for a long, long time. That is the reason why Gupta has abandoned the unaware line. But, he also knows that sleeping with the ISI is an unforgivable act of treason, soaked in blood. So, he bails out the likes of Justice Sachar and many others yet to be exposed by inventing a high moral ground where none can be: “A more honest — and morally totally convincing — answer would have been the straight one. That as an intellectual or, in case of some, as a civil society activist, you were fully within your rights to go and speak at any forum, even if it was funded or organised by the Pakistanis and that just the fact of accepting a free ticket and a tiny per diem would not have compromised your integrity.”

As I understand this bizarre argument, it is perfectly fine for well-known Indians who are representing India to lend respectability and credence to, and bolster the ant-India position of the ISI on Kashmir across the world, knowing fully well that it is one over which three wars have been fought and over which a proxy war is still on. So, by the same logic, Indians should also be at liberty to go to Kashmir and physically fight ISI’s war against India, or do the same in other parts of India by carrying out a terror attacks and killing innocent people.

A war is fought more in the minds than on the battlefield. How can any sane man argue that while Indian foot soldiers of the ISI (a wing of Pakistan's military) are guilty and should be hanged, those who are knowingly furthering its hostile-to-India cause and its war across the globe are not only innocent but have a right to do so?

But Gupta has the the nerve to say that it is entirely irrelevant as to “who accepted Fai’s free tickets and hospitality, knowingly or unknowingly.” Perhaps Gupta no longer needs such petty perks. But, the same gentleman, knowing what he does about the military’s vice-like grip over Pakistan's India policy, was among the first to articulate, and repeatedly, after 26/11 that India should actually strengthen Pakistan and give to it concessions over Kashmir and other issues to “enhance the power and credibility” of Pakistan’s government, one that even prints fake Indian currency in its mints. Then I had imagined that he was writing the nonsense he was because someone in the corridors of power that he lives in had asked him to. Now the picture is getting frightening.

For India, what Faigate means to the Americans is, at one level, peripheral. It is undoubtedly a cog in the big picture, but for us the immediate and extremely worrying concern is that it is the tip of a very large ISI iceberg that is attacking India at all levels in pursuance of the Pakistan military’s single-point objective of bleeding India to death through a thousand cuts.

What the likes of Shekhar Gupta and Vir Sanghvi will not speak of are the scary logical deductions that must come first to the minds of all analysts as a result of Fai exposure as an ISI agent. The simple fact is the Fai was used by the ISI to defeat India internationally in so far as its position on Kashmir is concerned. And it spent millions of dollars over the counter and -- there can be little doubt -- many more below it, to get Indians to help it win this small but integral part of its existential war against India. The real war is being fought and will be fought on ground in India, including Kashmir. Does it take rocket science to understand that ISI must have been spending a thousand times more here, at every possible level, starting from sleeper cells to the media, academia, think tanks, babudom, and India’s political leadership, right up to and including 10 Janpath?

Rahul Gandhi’s assessment, shared with an American, – no electoral politics there – that Hindu terror posed a bigger threat to India than Pak-sponsored terror, is irrefutable proof that – notwithstanding his limited intelligence and grasp – even the future Prime Minister of India (as some believe) is being deliberately misguided by his trusted advisers. This cannot be a coincidence. The ISI has penetrated even his innermost circle.

While one can accept that the daily front paging of Hindu terror is essentially driven by the compulsions of vote-bank politics, it cannot be an accident that the whole mainstream mind-space has become irrationally pro-Pakistan during the last few years.

Sonia Gandhi has appointed the lawyer who defended ISI’s front organisation SIMI, the mother of the Indian Mujahideen who have carried out many terror attacks, as India’s Law Minister. She has also filled the NAC with hate-filled activists of very dubious antecedents and got a former bureaucrat who has given SIMI a de facto clean chit to draft the pernicious Communal Violence Bill that emasculates Hindus and puts the reins of determining culpability of individuals and all state organs, including the military, in the hands of unelected representatives from minority communities, in so far as Hindu-Muslim tensions (let's cut pretences) are concerned.

Seen in isolation, as indeed, liberals and ISI agents want us to, the many steps being taken by Sonia’s government and NAC seem innocuous, even harmless. But when viewed holistically, one cannot miss the fact that there is a method behind it all. Liberals and peaceniks and Hindu-haters are all pushing the “Break-India” agenda of the ISI.

The labyrinth of terror of which Fai was a part runs deep in India and many of these guys who have virtually been dictating India’s policies along all dimensions with regard to Pakistan and, by extension, Indian Muslims, who the ISI has been trying to turn into its assets, are central players in it, many willing, aware. That is why the hushed silence. That is why these fraudulent defences.

“ISI has more freedom of opinion than us.” This tweet unknowingly sums up the picture that India’s traitors have helped paint. They are many, they are powerful, they are dangerous, they have vested interests. And they have already begun the Big Cover Up. They may have much at stake, but India has much more. So, they have to be taken on by the state, by each one of us. The sa’fai’ under way must be exposed, and pressure put on the government to uncover and remove all termites who have gnawed deep into India, right to the doors of Sonia Gandhi who seems to have got caught in a trap of her own making.

The purge has to be ruthless and untouched by any political or personal considerations. This is the real lesson of Faigate.
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MEDIA, AUCTIONS AND AAM ADMI

Who was on auction yesterday and is even today? Yes, everyone knows that cricket players are being bid for and bought by owners of various IPL teams. Exciting? Sure, to some. Glamorous? You bet. Do the proceedings spread over two days merit being screened live? Arguably yes, on sports channels. On national news channels? Are you crazy?

You and I may not be crazy, but some owners of India’s 'free' media think we are. That’s why they have decided that a nation of 1.2 billion people grappling with innumerable problems, wants to see nothing but the entire proceedings, live on, yes, news channels and regional channels too.

Is there any such precedent anywhere else in the world other than in a failed banana republic, even there? I cannot imagine. Why, then, is India being subjected to this blitz by media barons?

On Jan 07, Rajdeep Sardesai, part-owner and part-editor-in-chief of CNN IBN, tweeted: “while aam admi worries about price of onions, franchisees will worry about the price of players. yeh hai india.” Touching sentiments. The same gentleman had, however, a minute earlier tweeted: "tomorrow morning, IPL 4 auction. dont miss our coverage 10 am onwards with harsha bhogle and sanjay manjrekar, should be fun.” Many on Twitter spotted the emotional disconnect, the hypocrisy, and there was a barrage of tweets highlighting the same. On Jan 08, he replied to one: “@alok10823 everyone loves a good auction, esp when cricketers are on sale, including the aam admi.” If Sardesai is to be believed, he is loving it today too.

The aam admi, as you can easily infer, has become some kind of a joke. Earlier only politicians used to claim to speak on his behalf even as they lining their pockets with money meant for him. Now the media is doing the same. Politicians have to speak of and for him because they need his vote once in a few years. Media needs no votes but cannot do without him too primarily because it has unilaterally appropriated the right to question politicians and everyone else, on his behalf. For both he is the real sovereign. However, the media is completely unaccountable to him and, therefore, has no interest in him save the revenue he generates by watching himself being made the invisible star every evening in someone else’s voice and of someone else’s agenda.

Rajdeep Sardesai the businessman understands what a terrific tool this media-created aam admi is. Even a chameleon can’t do what he can be made to. That is why Sardesai can in one breath make him look worried about onion prices and in the next project him as someone who loves watching, for two full days, ‘news’ showing cricketers being sold. The real aam admi may forget his onions, media owners never forget theirs.

The question that is begging to be asked, but never will be on any TV channel, is: why are news channels run this tamasha, suspending everything else in time and space?

News channels are not entertainment channels for running shows that people love; nor are they sports channels, otherwise they would telecast revenue-jackpot 20:20 matches live. Then why? The entire IPL auction drams, as I understand, is nothing more than one big non-stop advertisement whose sole objective is to increase consumer awareness of the IPL brand so as to maximise spectator and viewer participation in the upcoming tournament. Since it is not a live cricket match, playing it live on the one authorised sports channel that will telecast the tournament, will not get its promoters and owners the number of eyeballs they want to attract. Viewers across India can, however, be carpet-bombed and mind-numbed into making IPL a bumper success if news and regional channels carry it live.

A two-day running advertisement for India’s most successful sports brand is a mouth-wateringly lucrative business proposition. An independent news editor concerned about core values and principles of journalism will, as per my understanding, not be a party such blatant prostitution of a news channel. An owner, possibly lubricated even more by additional ‘personal’ payments/inducements under the table, will, on the other hand, hasten to summon the non-existent aam aadmi, like Sardesai has done, to justify the decision, to hell with ethics, to hell with the real aam aadmi.

Now this is not an isolated aberration. This is one more recent example that I must briefly dwell upon to highlight the fact that media has become slave to pecuniary interests of owners in a tearing hurry to become billionaires, whatever it takes. Yes, Radia tapes also tell us much about the deep rot and the quid pro quos, but this is not the time to discuss them.

Post Radia, there’s been much debate about the alarming manner in which lobbyists have infiltrated and corrupted the media and the government. Sardesai, one of ‘Radias’ still not singed due to lack of 'clinching' evidence of quid pro quo, cleverly used his position as editor-in-chief to host a program on the channel he owns, to lobby for legalizing lobbying. An alert netizen caught him in the act. Sardesai -- difficult to swallow -- actually went to the extent of creating false Twitter accounts to deceive viewers – and policy makers too -- into believing that public opinion was in favour of lobbying. When caught, he and Sagarika Ghose, his wife, tried to get away by fibbing that the comments were genuine but were wrongly attributed to Twitter. To their bad luck and surprise, alert netizens dug deeper and discovered that lie too. The faking was wilful. Full details, available on dalalmedia posterous will shock you. CNN IBN was finally forced to tender an apology. And the furore subsided. It should not have.

The cleverly-worded apology was not a call of conscience; it was given out of sheer compulsion, to plug further damage. Sardesai had simply no choice, the documentary evidence, like in the Adarsh society case, was clear and damning; there was no escape route available. It was TINA that got Sardesai to cut his losses and pour ganga jal over the crime he had deliberately committed with all his faculties in fine fettle.

The question that was not asked loudly enough then was: what was Sardesai’s motivation to go to the extent of faking public opinion in favour of lobbying? That there had to be a strong personal stake in, firstly, asking such a question at such an inopportune moment and, secondly, taking the risk of falsifying tweets, was clear as day light. But, no one else, including in the media, probed any further. No one asked him why he instructed his staff to create false tweets; his staff was also not asked what exactly they were told by him. Who knows what else would have spilled out after the questioning had started? There is little doubt in my mind that an honest follow up would have opened the eyes of the whole country to the fact that the then President of the Editor’s Guild is a corrupt man who can go to any extent to push his personal business interests on the platform of his channel. The journalist in him, there is little doubt, has been all but killed by the businessman he has chosen to become.

You can close your eyes and bet that this was not the first such case. Before Radia, no one suspected the integrity of these guys and no one bothered to check. Now every little twitch is viewed with suspicion, and that is why Sardesai was caught. He will be much more careful in future, but remains otherwise unfazed. That is why on being questioned about telecasting the IPL auction live he has summarily informed us that 'his' aam aadmi, who is no one other than him, wants it. You and I can take a walk, and can keep walking.

Know and never forget that rich Radia media owners are in the game only for the bucks. And they won’t let you, even India, stop them. That's why they are not at all concerned that they and the journalists they employ have been exposed as a class and that trust has been lost. It does not trouble them that the quid pro quo is now visible even to the blind, that though the evidence may or may not stand scrutiny in a court of law, in the court of public opinion it is more than enough.

So the next time you switch on a news channel and hear an anchor passionately asking a question on behalf of the aam admi, be very wary. Always try to imagine what might have gone on behind the scenes, and what the unspoken agenda is, personal, political, pecuniary. Someone, something is being 'auctioned' behind the scenes all the time. Radia may have not have been the TINA that India had hoped it would be. But if you and I are alert, and the few men and women of unimpeachable integrity in the bordello can muster enough courage, it is only a question of time before the sticky garbage is shoveled out.
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PAKISTAN'S SLIDE INTO EXTREMISM IS REAL AND DANGEROUS

The Pew Global Attitudes Project report about Pakistan is the latest in a string of quick and unexpected developments that have confirmed what was widely known about Pakistan's tryst with terror and its denial about its duplicity. In fact, if the findings of Pew are accurate, then what they reveal is even more dangerous than what Wikileaks and Headley have.

But before we get to the Pew report, a quick recapitulation of developments during the last couple of years will be useful.

Despite 26/11 and the subsequent efforts of the Pakistani establishment to brazenly protect those involved in carrying out the attack, many of India's numerous Pakistan experts and leading journalists have been telling India that it is in India's best interest to continue to talk to Pakistan and also give it concessions so that the democratic government there can be strengthened. If we fail to do that and don't trust its civilian leaders, so has been the warning, that nation could be overrun by the Talibanis who will then flood into India and create mayhem.

This line of argument has, unfortunately, for long conveniently glossed over the fact that jihadi extremists, no matter which group they belong to, have not emerged on their own; they are also not thriving -- at least those who have not turned against the state -- despite an establishment that is against them: the military that effectively rules Pakistan actually treats them as their frontline troops. It has also ignored the fact that the radicalisation of Pakistan is a direct consequence of an obsessed-with-India establishment deliberately promoting a radical version of Islam, violent extremism and hatred for "Hindu" India, not just through Saudi-funded Wahhabi Madrassas but also through education being imparted in regular schools. One reason for pursuing this path is that, as Thomas Friedman says pithily, Pakistan "exists not to be India".

The Pew report confirms that the results of this assiduously pursued ideological transformation of the society have been spectacularly and, for India and possibly the rest of the civilised world, disturbingly successful. And almost irreversible.

At the time of Partition, both India and Pakistan inherited secular laws that the British had laid down. Pakistan, like India, still follows the same criminal justice system. But, thanks to decades of efforts put in by the state, most Pakistanis now want the same medieval laws that the Talibanis have imposed in areas under their influence to be implemented in the whole country: "Pakistanis overwhelmingly support making segregation of men and women in the workplace the law in their country (85%), and comparable percentages favor instituting harsh punishments such as stoning people who commit adultery (82%), whippings and cutting off of hands for crimes like theft and robbery (82%), and the death penalty for those who leave the Muslim religion (76%). Support for gender segregation and for severe punishments is pervasive across all demographic and regional groups." This finding is corroborated by the finding that "Pakistani Muslims overwhelmingly welcome Islamic influence over their country’s politics. Nearly nine-in-ten (88%) of those who see Islam playing a large role say that is a good thing. Similarly, 79% of those who say Islam’s role is small say that is a bad thing for their country. This pattern is true across all demographic groups."

The other significant finding, as far as India is concerned, is that although half or more Pakistanis hold and 'unfavourable' view of various militant groups like the Al Qaida, Afghan Taliban and the Pakistan Taliban, the picture with regard to the anti-India LeT is quite different. It enjoys the highest 'favourable' rating of 25%, the lowest 'unfavourable' rating of 35% and, most importantly, the highest 'Don't Know', 40%. More importantly, in Punjab, the state that defines Pakistan, with 40% of its population and 90% of its military, the LeT gets its most positive ratings with an equal number, 34%, expressing a positive and negative view. Seen in conjunction with the startling finding that only 8% of Pakistani Muslims consider suicide bombing justifiable, possibly because Pakistan has recently been hit by such attacks, it can be said that favourable views about terror outfits, particularly the LeT, would have been much higher but for the overwhelming opposition to such attacks. This deduction is further strengthened by the the finding that against a national average of 71%, 95% Punjabis and 91% Mohajirs consider Kashmir a very big problem. Kashmir, let there be no doubt any longer, does "flow in the blood" of the Pakistanis who really matter.

As everyone knows in Pakistan, the LeT is the military's sword arm as far as India is concerned, and not just with regard to Kashmir. Pakistanis have also seen decades of military rule and are experiencing one now behind a civilian façade. Liberal wisdom, often elitist, tells us that people love democracy and hate dictators because of the oppressive restrictions they place on their freedom etc; India rejected the Emergency, did it not? Do Pakistanis confirm that view? The surprising answer is, no. 84% of them, in fact, have positive views about their military; not just that, they think it is better than all other institutions of the state. Compare this to only 25% who think well of the national government and the multi-dimensional significance of this result will hit you in the face.

That the Pakistanis trust their military much more than they do their politicians is not surprising considering that shorn of the cloak of religion, the sub-continental dna is the same. But what should be a cause of some concern to India is that this means that there is serious public support for the hawkish anti-India policy that the military has adopted almost right from the time Pakistan was born, and that the radicalisation of society has now reached a critical mass, possibly close to a tipping point. Add to this the finding that they view India as Pakistan's biggest threat and Kashmir as its biggest problem, and you cannot, no matter how hard you try, escape the dreadful deduction that there is no way that Pakistan is either going to back off on Kashmir or wind up the LeT and other terror outfits employed by it to wage war against India.

Our analysts, journalists and spooks have, evidently, been talking to the wrong people, lapping up the wrong answers and pushing India's leaders on the wrong path.

An Arvind Adiga is not asked his religion, not nationality, on landing in Pakistan accidentally. The coffin of a Hindu member of Pakistan's Youth Parliament killed in an air crash near Pakistan's capital is not marked "Kafir" absent-mindedly. The moderate Pakistani that we have been led to believe represents the silent majority in Pakistan is heading the dodo's way. Charmed by hugs and smiles and song and drama, some of us continue to believe that all is well in mainstream Pakistan, that Karachi is just like Mumbai, that we are the same people. Concerned about the rise of terror groups, we innocently even warn Pakistan that it faces a grave danger from these elements and that unless they are reined in and de-fanged, they will run over and ruin the country.

There is no chance of Pakistan being run over by a few thousand men, most under tight control of the ISI, and armed with light weapons. A half-million men army that has not hesitated to employ maximum force, including artillery and air power, against it own people that it considers armed and dangerous, is not going to be run over like this. But, sooner rather than later, it will be run over by -- compelled to adopt if you like -- the very anti-change and regressive ideology it has employed to define Pakistan's identity as well as motivate its people to become jihadis.

When 80% of a country's citizens want a change that its leaders have themselves been encouraging, its time can be said to have come. That is real message that is coming out of the Pew report, one that should wake India's leaders up.

Will Pakistan collapse when that happens? Of course it will not. It will travel back in time along many dimensions. But it will not go under. At least not immediately.

What happens within Pakistan should normally not be of any concern to any country. But, as developments over the last few decades have shown, if the whole country is clothed in the colours that now only adorn militants, the terror threat to India will increase manifold. Worse, it is likely to spur some Indian Muslims to follow the same path, considering the fact that Pakistanis themselves draw ideological sustenance from the Deoband seminary. One has only to read the resolution adopted last year by the Jamaat Ulama-I-Hind to get an idea of the direction that Muslim religious and political leaders are giving to India's Muslims. The banning of co-education in Madrassas in UP, the cutting off of the hand of a Kerala professor and the hounding of a lady professor in West Bengal for refusing to wear a burqa while teaching are pointers to the dangerous growth of intolerance, fundamentalism an isolationism in India's secular society.

Tavleen Singh, one of the few Indian journalists who has the courage to say what needs to be, is on the dot with her warning: "Of all the fanatical religious movements that have come and gone in this country, there is not the faintest shadow of a doubt that the Jihad is the most dangerous. If jihadi organisations are allowed to spread their poisonous propaganda...it is only a matter of time before the situation becomes as uncontrollable as it has in Pakistan...turn India into a breeding ground for the Taliban. We cannot allow the jihad in India because its ideology is the antithesis of the idea of India."

A strong and extremist Pakistan cannot be in India's interest. Whichever angle one may look at it from. That such a Pakistan will self-destruct, as Fatima Bhutto believes, in the long run can be of little comfort to India. Because till that happens, India and, to a lesser extent, the rest of the civilised world are going to be hit with ferocious violence and increasing and uncompromising intolerance. It is time our leaders shed their meekness concealed under false moral cloaks and do everything that needs to be done, including balkanising Pakistan if necessary, so that this unprecedented threat is not allow to grow any bigger than it already has primarily because they have let it.
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INDIA STONED: THE ENEMY IS IN OUR MIDST

"I congratulate Pakistani journalist Barza Butt on her humane views on tragedy of Baluchistan and brutalities of Pakistan Army." Can you even conceive of such a tweet being sent by, say, India's Home Minister to the most well-known Pakistani TV journalist and the premier media voice of the Pakistani establishment? Worse, can you even imagine that Pakistan government's de facto PRO will ever dare to show her country and its military in such poor light to its only enemy and rival? And not once but repeatedly for years, applauded by the very government on whose orders young sons of India lay down their lives without questioning why?

Anyone who knows Pakistan will know that such an anti-national journalist will be totally shunned by the establishment -- if not made to 'disappear' -- much less allowed to become a star.

But, India is a different country altogether. Here, leading journalists and others not only routinely subvert minds of Indians but are apparently actually encouraged to do so by a government for whom pursuit of a narrow political agenda that aims at pulling in the last Muslim vote supersedes all other considerations. The vote must come, even if is drenched with the blood of India's unsung sons, even if India has to kneel before its implacably hostile neighbour Pakistan. Some of us may not see what is happening, the plot unfolding, the stage being set to sell India for a few votes more. But, sharp eyes across the border miss nothing. They take in every byte and every image because that helps them fine tune their relentless war against India, to surprise it with monotonous regularity, to remain a few hundred steps ahead of an establishment that can barely react, much less act proactively to defeat its challenge.

An enemy always refrains from publicly acknowledging and appreciating elements in the opposite camps that are working in its interest; they must be kept looking authentic and honest. But, sometimes, the joy over their success is so difficult to contain that one lets one's feeling out before sense returns. And Twitter lets you do that before you can even pause for a breath.

The tweet that you read in the first paragraph is not fictitious. It was sent to Barkha Dutt by the Governor of Punjab, Pakistan. Just replace 'Baluchistan' with 'Kashmir' and 'Pakistan Army' with' Indian Army'. Pakistan's Punjab, for those of you who may not know, is not just another province; it is Pakistan. 90% of Pakistan's military is Punjabi, as is the LeT that is leading Pakistan's jihad in Kashmir.

Unfortunately for India, Dutt is not alone in this defaming, this deforming, this defeating of India. The so-called liberal media and the academia are full of such people that the state seems to have bought through the many means at its command. They have been working over time even after 26/11 to convince India that Pakistan actually needs to be strengthened and that India must make fatal concessions to that country to buy peace. Friendship is what these people talk of all the time, even though Pakistan shows no sign or interest whatsoever in letting up on its proxy war. That, some believe, is primarily because they are convinced that any tough talk, forget action, against a rogue state that needs to be whipped blue, will cost votes of Indian Muslims and thereby the throne of Delhi.

The violence which erupted in the Valley during the last month took everybody by surprise, when it should never have. This is not the first time that India has been so surprised. Worryingly, it will keep getting caught unprepared because those who should keep their senses alert when dealing with Pakistan readily trust --at least pretend to -- the smiles and the blatantly fraudulent explanations that they are given, whether by leading Pakistani journalists -- the rare exceptions can be spotted from miles -- or the establishment, whose voice the former articulate with some sophistication.

More damaging than the stones that youth of a few districts of Kashmir Valley have been throwing at India are the ones that some Indian have thrown at their own country. To cite one more example, Amitabh Mattoo, a Kashmiri Pandit who should know better than most about the roots of the Kashmir problem and the extent of religious extremism that has fuelled the Pakistan controlled proxy war there, has almost mirrored what separatists are saying, and all but given Pakistan a clean chit. He has, surprisingly, not applied his mind even to refute the allegations made by them that no one died during the Bharat Bandhle while scores did in Kashmir; every one knows that nowhere during the bandh was the police targeted directly by organised and hired stone-pelting mobs with the clear aim of forcing it to react and create martyrs. But not Mattoo.

The tragedy of India is that such fellows who have little qualms about betraying their own people made refugees by violent religious extremism -- what to talk of India -- are made members of the National Security Advisory Board and other national institutions. Should that surprise us any more? Can, in Pakistan, people with these kind of views even dream of finding such favour of the ruling establishment?

Let us not be under any illusion that the problem in Kashmir will go away if Manmohan Singh implements the Youth Empowerment Scheme that Matto is selling, even though he knows better, or if India signs the sell-out deal with Pakistan that Musharraf had proposed. Autonomy and azaadi are red herrings that will yield no return whatsoever; they have not in 63 years, will not in a hundred. The proposed deal with Pakistan will only result in handing over the Valley on a platter to it, with the rest of the state also being lost. As I and many others have been saying, there will be no peace in Kashmir till Pakistan swallows it. And -- this is vital -- if it does, there will be no peace in the rest of India.

This time it is stone pelting. Next time it will be something else, sudden, unexpected. After the Americans leave Afghanistan, it will be full-blown terrorism of unprecedented ferocity and violence. As long as Pakistan exists, blood will flow. Pakistan is not in a hurry. To its jihadi mindset, the dead give life; the more the better. There is no room for sentiment. To the emotional and soft Indian, tears are enough to wipe away the sight of what lies behind them. Pakistanis and Kashmiris know it all too well. As do Indians who are shaping national policy and public opinion. Kashmiris only have to pelt a few stones at India's hapless defenders. Mindless, even dishonest Indians are waiting to pick and throw them and some of their own too, at their own country, and earn fulsome praise of its only enemy.

India is fighting the Fourth Battle of Panipat in Kashmir. The next stop is Delhi. So those who are asking India to capitulate there are effectively asking India to surrender as a nation. Let us remember that the Deoband seminary from which the LeT and the Pakistan Taliban draw ideological inspiration and guidance, is in India, not Pakistan. Indian Muslims, more in number than Pakistani Muslims, are loyal Indians no doubt, but only a fool will believe that if Pakistan succeeds in creating the conditions that it is aiming to, the pull of religion will not prove to be irresistible again.

India is being stoned by Indians. The enemy is in our midst. We cannot defeat Pakistan till we defeat him. The sooner we do it, the better.
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Readers may also read:
1.Tavleen Singh: The jihad comes to Kashmir
2. Kanchan Gupta: Let's not defame the armed forces
3. Dealing with Pakistan: Lessons from history
4. Kashmir Deal: Solution or surrender?
5. Don't 'beggar my buggering neighbour; make him bigger'
6. Akbar turns Jinnah, asks for Muslim state
7. Reorganise J&K on a linguistic basis

MUTHALIK AND TEHELKA: THE BAD AND THE UGLY

Pramod Muthalik is in the news again. This time for allegedly demanding Rs 60 lakhs for staging riots across Karnataka. A little over a year back too he had hit the headlines after members of his Ram Sene beat up some boys and girls who were having a good time in a pub in Mangalore.

This self-proclaimed defender of the Hindu faith needs to be dealt with severely, and an example set. On this score there is little scope for disagreement. The government of Karnataka --"BJP's Karnataka" as the media likes to call it, to subtly influence minds against the party -- needs to show resolve and demonstrate to the nation that Muthalik and his goons are not sleeping with leaders of the BJP as many allege.

But, hang on. The story is not a simple one of the good guys and the bad, both easily identifiable. There is a serious twist here. The good guys, who are self-proclaimed defenders of secularism, are also not what they appear to be. They are manifestly hit men who are executing one more deadly mission for an undisclosed consideration.

The 'good' guys are from Tehelka, India's premier sting outfit that also publishes a weekly, and that bolted into prominence in 2001 with that famous hidden camera clip of the then BJP President Bangaru Laxman receiving a Rs one lakh bribe from journalists posing to be defence dealers. Till then India had not seen the likes of YSR Reddy, Madhu Koda, Shashi Tharoor etc and, above all, the Telecom Raja who, as per a tweet, steals not in rupees but in percentage of GDP! That is why all hell broke loose in the media then. Laxman lost his job within a day and the BJP power in the election that followed. A job well done.

In 2007, Tehelka came up with what the Congress thought was another winner in Gujarat. Its sting operation showed various BJP leaders talking about and instigating the 2002 riots that followed the burning of a railway coach carrying Kar Sevaks at Godhra. Unfortunately, it could find nothing whatsoever to nail Narendra Modi. Even more importantly, the sting inadvertently put to death the canard that was being spread by some political parties that the Godhra incident was an accident and that the riots that followed were pre-planned by Modi. The outcome, naturally, was exactly the opposite of what Tehelka was tasked to ensure: Modi won.

In 2009, a few months before the general elections, Tehelka was in action again though not through a sting. This time it was its journalist Nisha Susan who started the Pink Chaddi Campaign to collect and send panties to Muthalik for the above mentioned Mangalore pub incident. Needless to add, the entire media went ballistic and for many days it appeared as if the biggest challenge that India was facing was not from terrorism that had claimed many lives but from Muthalik who was against girls going to and drinking in pubs. How many votes it cost the BJP will never be known, but the party's performance in the elections was disastrous.

Now it is Muthalik again, caught asking for Rs 60 lakhs by Tehelka's camera.

The Congress has been in power since 2004. During this period, many a scandal has surfaced, rivetted the nation's attention and then mysteriously disappeared, without any proof having been found to nail anyone. Many opposition leaders have also been hounded on some serious corruption charges. All kinds of allegations have been made against them but the CBI, after snapping at them like a ferocious Rottweiler, has invariably turned into a docile Labrador at politically critical moments. No wonder BJP President Nitin Gadkari could find no better 'muhavra' to describe the condition of some opposition leaders, leading to, as the Times of India put it so well, howls of protest!

Corruption is now a reality on an unprecedented scale at the highest echelons of the government. But do we hear even a whimper? On the contrary, Barkha Dutt says she has become shock-proof to it. What that means and what that says about the integrity levels of journalists is not difficult to figure. What is of even greater significance, shocking in fact, is that Tehelka has not done a single sting on any Congress minister or senior party leader, much less on a scale and at the level that it did against the NDA government. In six long years. Even during these years, it has focused primarily on the BJP and outfits whose deeds can spoil the image of that party.

Can this be a mere coincidence? Or is there something more to it? Tarun Tejpal is the editor of Tehelka. As a journalist, he should have learnt how to at least pretend to be politically neutral. He did that too for a long time. But the victory of the Congress party in 2009 apparently gave him so much of personal joy, for reasons not yet known, that he could not control himself from writing a demeaning open letter in praise of Sonia Gandhi. I had written a post on it then itself. The same is reproduced below. Read it and them decide what Tehelka is and what kind of media rot it represents.

Muthalik is bad, no doubt. But, as you will soon find, Tehelka is ugly.
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Last year, some of us were surprised when someone who once wanted to become the Secretary General of the United Nations wrote in glowing praise of Sonia Gandhi. No one was in any doubt then that Shashi Tharoor was using Time magazine to bend over in such a manner only because he saw in it a fail-safe ticket to get into the Congress party and then into the government. And that is precisely what has happened with his appointment as a junior minister in India's Foreign Office.

While Tharoor's objective was clearly visible and somewhat justifiable too, considering the culture of the Congress party, how does one explain the unbelievably despicable level to which a journalist famous for passing off his sordid and politically motivated sting operations as exercises in public morality, has sunk to in his lowly endeavour to endear himself to, yes, Sonia Gandhi? In perhaps a first for Indian journalists - and that is saying a lot considering the lot we have - Tarun J Tejpal, editor of Tehelka, has crossed every possible red line that separates journalism and political sycophancy.

In an open letter “to the unlikely woman whose tenacity in staying the course changed the contours of Indian politics”, this paragon of secularism not only belittles India's many gods but lays obscene praise at her feet, including her famous 'renunciation' of the PM's post, by - hold your breath - crediting it to Tenth Commandment (Though shall not covet) of the "extra god" that he says she has brought along with her from Italy! Quoting Mathew's exhortation in 10:7, he lays bare his deeply ingrained religious and political hatred for the "devils", "the bigots who divide us" and the ones "who have taken a fourth of our dominions".

He does not stop here. Craftily, he even roots for dynastic rule and Rahul Gandhi: "No doubt with the help of your extra god, you have done a fine job of bringing up your son. He has humility, decorum, diligence, and he takes the long and inclusive view. We do not like the idea of dynasty, but we abhor the idea of divisiveness more". And then he drops the inevitable big bombshell, not wanting to take even the slightest risk of being found wanting along any dimension: "And yes, as I bid you speed and strength, with the extra god by your side, may I make a final plea. You have given us of yourself, and of your son. Now will you kindly also give unto us your luminous daughter"!

Now you know why this angel of morality and ethics and values and integrity lay silent for the five years that the Congress was in power. Now you know why no sting operation that could taint the government in any manner was done by Tehelka. Tejpal was not alone in this deceit. You would have noticed that it was only after the elections that the media suddenly started openly talking about "wet/ATM" ministries where big money had been made by ministers; DMK was also openly called "Delhi Money for Karunanidhi" and roundly criticised for becoming a family business, conveniently forgetting that the Congress was exactly that in Delhi. Why was everyone quiet for five years while DMK ministers were allegedly looting their ministries openly? Why the noise after the elections? It does not take great imagination to understand that the media brought all the muck into public glare only to embarrass the DMK and pressure it to give up its demands for all these lucrative ministries again! Poor Congressmen couldn't be made to suffer for another five years in "dry" ministries, could they?

Make any amount of money, loot the nation, do anything, but don't do anything that annoys or harms mommy. That is the credo that seems to be guiding the likes of Tejpal. Saving Sonia is more important than saving India. Cut that bullshit of the devil that you want India to see elsewhere, Tejpal; we can see him in you.

Remember how Tehelka did the original sting when the BJP was in power and crowed about its dishonest party President who was filmed receiving Rs 1 lakh in cash? Remember how Defence Minister George Fernandes, an absolutely honest man, was hounded by the Congress for corruption without even a shred of evidence except that some money was paid by Tejpal's flunkies to Jaya Jaitley in his residence? Remember how just before the Assembly elections in Gujarat, Tehelka did another sting on Narendra Modi solely to ensure that the Congress party won? Who can forget the recent Pink Chaddi campaign launched by one of Tejpal's reporters to bring the Congress back on track in Karnataka? I will not be surprised if that sting on Varun Gandhi was also done by Tejpal, to literally force Muslims into the arms of the Congress in UP. As is well known now, that did happen. Of course credit for that has, expectedly, been given to the genius of Rahul Gandhi.

Doing sting operations is a costly and time consuming affair, particularly if they are aimed at getting stunning political rewards for your political masters. Many, many stings have to be done before you get the kind of dramatic result that you are looking for in just one of them. One can only imagine the kind of effort that Tejpal's Tehelka hounds must have put in over the years to bring windfall gains for the Congress party, while pretending to be on a great unbiased and selfless national mission. No prizes for guessing where the huge funding and possibly more could have come from, for long years.

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal has exposed the rampant corruption that is prevalent in India's media. Apparently nothing comes for free. If you want coverage, you have to pay for it. And in the many cases where the media are closely aligned to a particular party, if you have a contrary view, you may not be covered even if you pay. The problem must be really serious if the WSJ sees "reporters, editors and newspaper owners holding the democratic process to ransom." That is why Paul Beckett is compelled to observe that a "corrupt press is both symptom and perpetrator of a rotten democracy".

Tarun Tejpal manifestly represents all that is rotten and stinking in India's media. Unfortunately he is not alone. There are many smug faces you can see out there, some hiding behind beards like him, who appear to be using the same route to riches and power. Recently in a TV discussion about Indian money in Swiss banks, Kapil Sibal, if my memory serves me right, told off a clever TV anchor that there were people even from the media who had parked ill-gotten money there. The problem is clearly far more serious than the glimpse that has been given in the WSJ.

When Shashi Tharoor sucks up to Sonia, everyone knows that like a seasoned bureaucrat, he is using that powerful, even if demeaning, tool to get rehabilitated respectably in India. But when a hardcore journalist like Tejpal crosses every single boundary of self-respect and honesty to do so, you have to question his motive.

Has this lick ass article been written out of gratitude for an overdose of Swiss fragrance received for a job well done or is it another you-pay-I-write job? Whatever it be, there is little doubt that it is a very loud signal that India's media and its democracy are far more rotten than ordinary Indians suspect.
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KHAOISTS: PLUNDERING INDIA'S FUTURE

An admission: this is a rather torpid post, the spiritlessness, the tiredness induced not by any physical ailment but by a sapping despondency and a sense of hopelessness about the speed at which India seems to be hurtling towards some sort of disaster, social upheaval, coup, even revolution, whose outcome one cannot even begin to visualise at this moment in time.

I have written many posts on the cancer of corruption that is eating into the vitals of this country. But to an outsider like me, as more and more layers of the rotten onion become visible, the bottom of the pit seems to get that much farther. What I had once thought was the Nadir, appears now to be just the shallow end of the stinking pool in which members of almost every single organ of the state - politicians, babus, judiciary, police - are splashing merrily along with that so-called watchdog, the media, that now appears to be in the vanguard of The Great Indian Robbery.

I simply do not have the heart, the enthusiasm, to pen another article with the passion and detail that I have earlier. Those who have the time and inclination may go through some of the older ones, links provided at the end of this post. But the matter is so grave that I cannot shut what I am seeing out of my mind altogether and remain no more than a passive, mute spectator and, thereby, a party to this plunder of India.

As we sit in the comforts of homes and theoretically debate, unaffected and from a safe distance, whether India faces a grave threat from Maoists whose writ already runs in varying degrees in 160 districts across eight states, we forget to notice that the real darkness, the real danger is right where each one of us is, in every corner of the country, and that most of us are actually responsible for it, one way or another. Just saying that lifts a burden off my soul and makes me feel good about myself. But, it does nothing to lessen the increasing and already unbearable load that we have placed on the soul of India.

We are the Khaoists, the incorrigibly corrupt, the shameless plunderers, the reckless looters who are hollowing this country from within. With gay abandon, as though it is our birthright. Many of us will, naturally, not admit publicly to being Khaoists, but as even a fool knows, only eunuchs and men of extraordinary virtue and character can stay away from the pleasures of a harem if they live there. Both are hard to spot these days. Many of the rest of us are India's shame. We are pushing India into an abyss at a furious pace because we are in a tearing hurry to catapult to riches with the nation's wealth, the money that should have fed, clothed, educated and empowered more than half of India's population that is still mired in the grime of inhuman poverty because of our unbridled, unprincipled ambition and greed that does not think before snatching a morsel from a hungry mouth, that conveniently shuts its eyes when it sees another doing so out of fear that it may spoil our party, disrupt our good life. Not one of us is blameless here.

I am feeling enervated. So I will leave you to go through some words of a few of those who live in and/or are fully cognizant of what goes on in the Khaoist's core. Make sense of what they are trying to say - and hide - and then decide for yourself whether there is hope yet, whether anyone can pull India out of this vortex at all before it is too late.

• Barkha Dutt. As a political journalist, I have to confess, that I am almost shock-proof when it comes to the entrenched corruption of many of our netas and the deals they strike to keep the wheels churning.
• Rajdeep Sardesai. We live in the age of institutionalised corruption. From politicians to judges, from senior bureaucrats to policemen, from corporate tycoons to petty officials, everyone it seems has a price... ‘paid news’ is not an overnight phenomenon that began with election ‘packages’... A political candidate who pays for favourable media coverage is not guaranteed victory, a corporate house through a ‘private treaty’ is almost guaranteed lasting immunity against journalistic ‘objectivity’...has led to a near-total breakdown of rules and standards.
• Tavleen Singh. At some point around the end of the eighties...everyone seemed to suddenly want to be in politics...the lure was filthy lucre. Indian politics had become the quickest way to make a fast buck...jewels from Cartier and Bvlgari, watches from Piaget and Patek Phillipe and handbags and shoes that cost more than an MP earns in a year.. grand mansions and hugely expensive vehicles... some travel only in private aircraft. The real money disappears into various corporate efforts that on the surface can look very legitimate. In almost every political household these days, there is at least one ‘corporate prodigy’... who thrives in the cloistered boundaries of crony capitalism...The sums we are talking of are so huge that they are beyond calculation.
• Shekhar Gupta. Like conquerors of the past, India’s politicians love to rule, and plunder cities... In older times, cities attracted conquering hordes who wanted to sack them for their riches. Now, in democracies, the political class knows that while their votes lie in the countryside, the real money sits in the cities and their real estate...If the new Andhra can get over the loss of Hyderabad, use what it gets in compensation and its own enterprise to build a new capital city...its politicians will figure soon enough that the money-making opportunity a new city offers is much greater than an old metro nearing saturation, howsoever energetic.
• Sagarika Ghose. (on Twitter) sad truth is media is too tied to advertising. That's why when it cos to corporates our lips are mostly sealed. not a good business model. profession has become terribly degraded. am very disillusioned! i joined in early 90s when press still meaningful.
  

Are Barkha Dutt and others really "shock-proof" to corruption? Their silence and thereby complicity applies only to corruption at the highest levels where the sums involved "are beyond calculation." Where petty officials and petty amounts are involved, where a cop taking a Rs 100 bribe is concerned, these guys aggressively carry out sting operations and confidently con the nation into believing that they are sparing no efforts to expose corruption and clean up the rot. Why this Janus-faced approach? Can they even begin to claim that they have remained "temptation-proof", not just for big bucks but entry into the inner circle of India's most powerful - and corrupt - politicians, whose reflected power enables them to almost 'terrorise' those on the lower rungs of political ladder with an arrogance that you will not see anywhere else in the civilised world?

Is it surprising that Shashi Tharoor can stand in the Lok Sabha and say with a straight face that it is ideals that brought him back to India after over three decades abroad and a failed attempt to become UN Secretary General, and despite the stench of corruption and nepotism emanating from him in the IPL scandal? Is it surprising that politicians are saying that the media, babus and judges rank much higher than them when it comes to graft? As the hastily buried and till now not denied allegation about the manner in which Barkha Dutt and Vir Sanghvi negotiated to get the current Raja of corruption the telecom portfolio indicates, and as is also evident from what you have read above, at the very top, corrupt politicians and journalists are like Siamese twins. Had it been otherwise, corruption would not have become the uncontrollable bush fire that it has.

I can say no more. I know this is a poor, illogical, abrupt way to end an article. Perhaps I should take a break and come back to finish it with a flourish. But why? Why should I pretend to be "shock-proof" to this pervasive rot and close this piece too with detached objectivity, when my mind is filled with a numbing mixture of revulsion, anger and helplessness at what Khaoists have done and are doing to my country, the way they are plundering its future to make their own? I think it will be best if your comments complete this unfinished story, if possible with hope.
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Previous related posts:
1. Shashi Tharoor: making a 'difference'
2. Politics and media: a new nadir
3. ND Tiwari: much more than a sex scandal
4. Covering up the mother of all corruption scandals
5. Conspicuous consumption and conspicuous poverty
6. Sink sting operations that stink
7. Capital punishment, not gain, for the corrupt
8. Corrupt, colonial India faces volcano
9. As long as there is aloo corrupt will be Laloo
10. Modi and Reddy: the choice is clear
11. Maytas: truth inverted, greed is king
12. 1000 times President's salary for India's babus
13. Tarun Tejpal: extra God and the Devil
14. Wake up (poem)
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TWITTER WARS: OLD MEDIA VS NEW

There is a new watch dog in town. Its bark may be small but its bite is big. 140 characters can and do pack a real punch, particularly when both sides are at each other at the same time, in near real-time.

India's old media, the traditional watch dog that many believe has become the pet dog of at least some of those it is meant to watch, is under scrutiny like it has never been. Journalists, long used to writing columns in isolation or imperiously holding centre stage in studios, with those invited taking great care to not annoy them by holding a mirror, have been hit by the unforgiving Twitter gale that has rattled some of them so much that they, the loudest proponents of freedom of speech, the staunchest opponents of any code of conduct for themselves, have begun to cry that the unfettered freedom that the net provides to everyone should be restrained.

There is no doubt that, as is to be naturally expected in any genuinely free environment, there are some individuals on Twitter and the net who tend to get more than abusive or create mischief. That is a hazard that has to be accepted by those who volunteer to be on Twitter to enrich themselves by engaging in a two-way interaction with thousands of others from a wide spectrum of the society. Here they cannot herd in a carefully chosen audience or abruptly shut out or ignore those who change the terms of debate and uproot them from their comfort zones. This is not proving to be easy for some of India's leading journalists who have been rattled by strident criticism, day in and out, 24/7.

For the first time ever, not only have they become subjects of microscopic public scrutiny, but are also not in a position to hide from the whole world the unrestrained views of those who find them wanting, even dishonest. This new experience, dramatically different from the ones they face in real life, where no one wants to put his hand into their beehives, is making them mad.

The first journalist who vented his frustration was the pompous Vir Sanghvi who, in his characteristic abusive style, branded many bloggers and tweeters as "sad losers who escape their pathetic little lives by abusing other people on the net." Soon, rattled perhaps by criticism of what many believe are demeaning, obsequious pro-Family views that he tries to sell as objective analysis, he accused them of being pro-BJP while lamenting the fact that there were few pro-Congress bloggers to respond to them with equal ferocity. Sagarika Ghose, to everyone's surprise, then set Twitter on fire, not with her much practiced smile, but by vitriol of the worst kind that exposed the ugly canines behind the charming façade, the class condescension beneath the egalitarian pretence. Twitter-world had got its Queen of Hate, the queen bee who attracted swarms of bees to deliver not honey but venom of the kind she thought she alone had the right to spew from her perch as the wife of perhaps India's wealthiest and most ambitious corporate journalist.

Corporatisation of the media has created a new breed of journalists who have become immensely rich in double-quick time. The jhola wallas have become 'suitcase' wallas. Rajdeep Sardesai, for example, has already made himself worth a few hundred crore rupees legally (See pages 51/370 and 112/370). One can imagine how some others might be doing. Let us not even get into the vast ocean of paid news that had probably once prompted Kapil Sibal, if I remember correctly, to tell a journalist on TV that some of his tribe too had stashed money in Swiss banks. That is why, while they all shout that judges and politicians should declare their legally declared 'white' assets, none of them wants the same disclosure norms applied to them. Perhaps they know what that will do to their hollow claims of objectivity, impartiality and honesty, and middle class pretensions.

The new Sultans and Spouses of the media - arrogant, intolerant, patronising - are fuming because they are being questioned, interrogated, probed, exposed, by ordinary guys who they want to summarily dismiss just because they are much below their material station, but cannot. So, they are hitting back in the only manner they have been employing successfully in sanitised studios and out-of-reach news offices: put their attackers on the defensive by accusing and abusing them viciously, and showering praise on members of their own fraternity who are groveling for crumbs.

The liberal mask has been violently thrown away along with the much quoted Voltaire; they were meant to be used only to justify their own right to offend and insult. Now that they are on the receiving end, they are discovering that the bite is actually unbearable. Now had this pain led to some sort of a realisation that they need to first exercise restraint and treat people with dignity, the ongoing Twitter war would have ended. But, the arrogance of money, power and reach has seeped into their very souls. They are not going to back off just because a few unseen guys on Twitter are forcing them to look within; there are far too many known and powerful faces in the real world who are going to keep them from falling off their fake pedestals.

That is why this call for some sort of code of conduct to be imposed - they won't use the word - on those who follow them on Twitter and say what they feel and not what they get paid to vomit. I hope that does not happen. Just as readers of news papers and viewers of TV do not have to read and watch what they don't want, those on the net, including Twitter, have the same freedom. If some journalists of the old media can't take the heat, too bad; they should get off Twitter, stop browsing the net and get back into their bubbles, professional and social. The new media, growing bigger and more powerful with every passing day, will not miss them at all.

For those interested in checking out Twitter Wars themselves, a look at the tweets on the pages of the following individuals (in alphabetical order) will make for a good start:

• Barkha Dutt
  
• Kanchan Gupta
• Rajdeep Sardesai
• Sagarika Ghose (w/o Rajdeep, for those who don't know)
• Swapan Dasgupta
• Vinod Sharma (that's me)

Related reading: New media: is the Congress really a 'loser' already?

FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION: NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HUSAIN AND WESTERGAARD

Often the question asked pompously by self-designated "liberals" is: where does "freedom of expression" end and religious sentiment start? Some ask, is religious sentiment the greater of the two and who is to decide? Then comes the killer: can 'goons' - offended believers - be allowed to take that decision? That option is, naturally, summarily dismissed as obnoxious. That done, they quickly appropriate the authority of deciding to themselves and a tiny band of similarly cocooned and rootless - at least pretending to be - individuals, and swiftly proceed to intolerantly thrash anyone who differs with them.

Nowhere has this stance and attitude been more shrill and black-and-white than in the case of MF Husain who left India because some Hindus protested against his right to paint Hindu Goddesses in the nude, by filing cases against him in court and vandalising a couple of his exhibitions to vent their anger. Ironically, the man who walked away because his freedom was fettered in India, has become a citizen of Qatar, a theocratic state that does not allow even a creative breath in matters related to religion, and says he is "honoured" by it.

In this paper, I will attempt to address the issue of artistic/creative freedom that has been much bandied about for years in defence of Husain's paintings that have hurt the religious sentiments of many believing and practicing Hindus.

There is little doubt that in olden times, Hindu Gods and Goddesses were painted/sculpted in the nude, mostly above the waist. Why was it so? During those days, in most parts of India, women did not cover their breasts; that is how they dressed. In 1892, for example, Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky wrote that when the wife of the British Governor of Madras had first wanted a law to "induce native women to cover their breasts, the place was actually threatened with a revolution." Blavatsky also mentioned that in 1470, Athanusius, a Russian traveller to India, observed that "women walk about with their hair spread and their breasts naked." Nude paintings and sculptures during those days were, therefore, accurate reflections of the prevalent customs.

But what is of the greatest significance is that these depictions were not manifestations of "freedom of expression" in the sense that these so-called liberals are trying to distort them in to. They were always created by believers with a great sense of devotion, love and reverence for the deities. These creations were also always meant for worship and/or veneration. They were never meant to be mere art for art's sake, as is the practice in the Western world at present, or to show any disrespect to either the religion or its followers.

Today, the way people dress has changed. That is why Raja Ravi Verma painted gods and goddesses in clothes that conform to the sensibilities of our times. That is how other artists paint them too now. That is why even though the artists who create thousands of statues of Goddess Durga with great reverence for Durga Puja each year, do so in their natural state, the Goddess is no longer shown without clothes to the public. The only Goddess who continues to be shown naked is Kali, because her manifestation, as per religion and legend, is in that state. The copy-pasted concept of creative freedom of expression is not even in the frame.

It is not in Hinduism alone that gods and goddesses have been depicted nude. Those who have some knowledge of the Tantric Buddhism followed in Tibet, Ladakh, Sikkim, Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh are aware that in many temples and paintings, gods and goddesses are depicted not only nude but in sexual union, in some cases very graphically. That, again, has nothing whatsoever to do with "freedom of expression". It has everything to do with the esoteric belief and practice that spiritual enlightenment can be attained through tantric sexual practices. These depictions, it needs to be repeated, are made with utmost devotion and an understanding of, and belief in, the sacredness of it. This does not automatically entitle anyone, particularly one who does not follow and respect their faith, to "creatively" and "artistically" reinterpret them in a manner that appears to be disrespectful and insulting to the deities who are living gods for their believers.

Let us come back to Husain. Something must be said here which most avoid saying in public but for which the sentiment is very strong. Husain is not a believer. On the contrary - it doesn't matter whether he is "secular" or not - he follows a religion that professes that there is only one God, Allah, and that all other gods are false and must not be respected or venerated. Therefore, when he paints Lakshmi and Durga not only nude but in a manner that seems to suggest sex with animals, no Hindu can believe that he has done so with any respect or veneration in his heart, like artists of olden times used to. It cannot also be a meaningless coincidence that perhaps the only other person he has taken the creative liberty of painting nude is Adolf Hitler. These paintings can be seen here. (Update: I have just discovered that Husain has painted some more offensive paintings that, if published in newspapers, may start violence on an unprecedented scale. Nude Ram and Sita having sex while Hanuman watches, Nude Sita clinging on to Hanuman's tail etc. Even that nude Lakshmi painting where everyone thinks she is sitting with her vagina resting on the head of her son Ganesh is actually her sitting on an elephant - body is not human. This guy is obviously a serial offender.)

Let us now draw the only real parallel that there is to what Husain has done: the famous Danish cartoons that had the whole Muslim world up in arms in 2005. Here too, an artist has used his creative freedom to depict the Prophet based on his understanding - however faulty - of the genesis of Islamic terrorism that is afflicting the world. Yes, many Muslims say that, as per their understanding, Islam is a religion of peace. But, who can deny that the extremists who have picked up the gun also claim that they are waging a holy war, a jihad, against those who do not follow Islam, as per their understanding of the teachings of the Prophet? Kurt Westergaard, the cartoonist, manifestly drew inspiration from the claims of the latter to draw the cartoons in question.

Can Westergaard's right of creative freedom to do so be justified, just as Husain's has been and is being very vociferously? Keeping aside the manner of depiction of the Prophet for a moment, it needs to be remembered that the basic argument of Muslims is that any pictorial depiction of the Prophet is prohibited in Islam. No compromise is acceptable to them on this score and, afraid of dangerous and violent backlash, almost all Indian "liberals" have made peace with this stance and meekly surrendered the right of a non-Muslim who does not believe either in the Prophet or in Islam, to exercise his right of "freedom of expression" and paint the Prophet.

But there is a twist here. The Prophet was actually painted by Muslims for centuries. Many old paintings showing him are available in a number of museums and other places places in the world. Some of these can be seen here. In fact, as per some accounts, the ban on so depicting him was not laid down in the Quran but was put in place a few hundred years later.

Be that as it may. What is of real relevance is the view that is dominant at present. The real question, therefore, is whether this view is to be respected and accepted. Or are we to get into endless debates to make a case that since paintings of Prophets were permitted a few centuries back, artists have a right to paint him today too in that manner? And, following from that stance are we then to accuse Muslims opposing it in the same manner as some of us are berating Hindus who are, comparatively peacefully, protesting against nude paintings of Hindu Goddesses by Husain?

If we are to accept one argument, as many so-called liberals cleverly have, for very practical reasons, then how can we reject the other unless we are dishonest in our souls? Unfortunately, some of us are. That is why they can, in one breath, demand in righteous rage that Husain be brought back to India, wish that Taslima Nasreen is sent out of India, and keep totally quiet about the banning of the making of a film on Nehru and Edwina due to pressure of Nehru's descendants and the banning of the telecast of 'The Lost Tomb of Jesus' by Discovery channel due to pressure by Christian groups? There are many more such examples.

The liberal agenda, let it be said, is not only shallow and dishonest but is also manifestly a political one, pursued vigorously by a tiny but vocal and powerful group driven by greed for grants, appointments, approval of the West and free jaunts to it, 'blessings' of the Family etc. It is also constrained by fear of business losses that some journalists-turned-big-businessmen might be made to suffer if they apply uniform yardsticks in all cases. Also, as two liberals have revealed on Twitter, it additionally gives them a brainless high as they believe it sets them apart from, and places them above, those belonging to what in their view is the lowly lower middle class.

No surprise that they can live comfortably with calls to kill Westergaard and still manage to shout that India must get back Husain and honour him with a Bharat Ratna.

Related reading: Tirupati and The 'Tomb of Jesus'


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NEW MEDIA: IS CONGRESS REALLY A 'LOSER' ALREADY?

Vir Sanghvi has written an interesting column in the Hindustan Times on some of his findings about netizens, based on his experience on Twitter and his own website. "At present, bloggers, visitors to websites and tweeters remain a curiosity for traditional media" he says, adding that the media is making a huge mistake by remaining blinkered and not according them the respect they get in the West.

Sanghvi then goes on to make two more extremely important observations, but fails to make the right deductions from them, for obvious reasons. "There is a growing revulsion over Islamic extremism and fundamentalism" which, he believes rightly, is less because it is anti-Muslim and more because the development is seen as regressive and anti-modern. He also thinks that there is "a hardcore of pro-BJP bloggers and tweeters" who vigorously defend the Sangh parivar, but almost no pro-Congress types who respond to them with equal ferocity.

Why are there no pro-Congress bloggers on the internet? Vir knows the answer but, as almost always, is not vir enough to admit it: There is no space left for them. Everything that they can think of and more is taken care of by mainstream journalists, some of whom whom often sound like official party spokesmen of the Congress party and, as some bloggers like to say, "family retainers" of the Gandhi family. With almost the entire media singing the Congress tune along myriad dimensions and swamping the nation with their enormous reach, there is almost nothing more pro-Congress left for bloggers to add; no one is going to read what he has already read or heard. They have, therefore, simply been put out of business by the likes of Vir Sanghvi, Barkha Dutt, Prannoy Roy, Rajdeep Sardesai, Sagarika Ghose, Vinod Sharma (of HT, not me), Pankaj Vohra, N Ram, Shekhar Gupta; the list is almost endless.

These guys belong to the 'paid blogger' brigade of the old media that still has an unmatched reach in a nation where internet penetration is very low.

Thanks to long years of Congress rule during which Congress-friendly individuals infiltrated into, and took control of, most opinion-influencing organs and institutions that define and shape the Indian state, generations have grown up reading and hearing that the Congress way is the right way for India. Thanks to the media, that line is reinforced on a daily basis. There are strong shades of Gobbelesque propaganda in this, but this fact remains largely concealed thanks to the ability of its numerous protagonists to intelligently gather it cleverly under the 'liberal' umbrella. Their task is made even easier by the fact that people of this generation have a very short attention span. They do not have the time or inclination to look beyond the obvious, or farther than what they have grown up reading and watching at home and school.

That is one major reason why the BJP has failed to attract the millions of Indians who find Islamic extremism repugnant. It axiomatic that that these guys should also detest a political party that appears to be pandering to everything related to it solely to get to or retain power. But, thanks to the 24/7 pro-Congress and anti-BJP bombardment of the media, bolstered by media-magnified sporadic acts of some fringe elements of the Sangh Parivar who mindlessly relish competitive extremism that has few takers, their disgust with the Congress does not translate into trust of the BJP. That is primarily why the BJP's alternate view - political, historical and ideological - sets off the alarms in their minds, making rational analysis impossible.

The BJP is never going to be able to infiltrate the media, Congress-style, because, even if it comes to power, it is not going to have an uninterrupted run there with the kind of brute majority that the Congress enjoyed for decades. Given this scenario, barring one or two journalists of dubious loyalties, no honest pro-BJP and anti-Congress opinion is ever going to get prime media time and space. Even if someone's conscience nudges him/her that an alternate view should be given fair and prominent billing, the demands of business and personal advancement hurriedly bury the thought.

That, to a large extent, explains the rumour that Sanghvi mentions about the BJP employing "a small group of people to scour the net every day and to heckle all anti-BJP bloggers." Sagarika Ghose, who also regularly gets a dose from a number of such individuals on Twitter, has coined a new term, "Internet Hindus", for them and says they "are like swarms of bees. They come after you at any mention of Modi Muslims or Pakistan." To my simple mind, heckling in such manner is hardly a sound political strategy because, as we have seen earlier too, it has the effect of putting off many reasonable individuals. So, if these hecklers are actually in the employ of the BJP, then its strategists are either idiots or in the secret employ of the Congress.

Most likely the hecklers are ordinary BJP supporters who, having found a platform at last where their voices can also be heard by all, overreact immaturely to what they perceive is a biased and one-sided criticism of everything Hindu by media personalities. What those in the media forget is that the onslaught of these guys is nothing compared to what they will be greeted with if they use the exact same words when other faiths are involved. Or may be they do remember what happened to Rushdie, Taslima, Baba Ram Rahim Singh and many others; that is why they choose their words very carefully when they know they will get real vipers coming at them, and not tiny internet bees that cannot sting.

Is, then, the Congress really 'a clear loser on the net', as Vir Sanghvi wants you to unsuspectingly believe, with a twinge of sympathy for the GOP?

Who are the guys who have the largest number of followers on Twitter? Whose posts get thousands of hits? Apart from Shashi Tharoor and Bollywood stars, it is journalists like Sanghvi who have virtually taken over the net too. Should I, therefore, not deduce, a la Sanghvi, that the Congress party has employed them to pre-empt a sleeping, doping, clueless BJP from exploiting this truly free and democratic medium, the only one that it realistically can?

The truth is that 'Congress' bloggers of the old media have become internet bloggers too. They are the ones who have swamped the net, burying any early advantage that the BJP may have gained inadvertently with the help of individual early net birds. The Congress is the clear winner here too. It sure has a great team of tech-savvy analysts.

Sanghvi is moaning because on the net, particularly on Twitter, you can’t hide the rotten eggs that are thrown at you. There is no editor to put them away before anyone sees them. It is not easy for those used to pompously making their point in a paper or in a TV studio to take direct hits from ordinary mortals, often in real-time.

While it is natural for Sanghvi to gloat over the fact that, thanks to the heavy dose of previous exposure and Twitter, journos have quickly gained a huge footprint on the net too, what he has perhaps not yet adequately realised, like the rest of the 'blinkered' media, is that there is a danger here, a real one: an increasing number of Indians are going to get an unprecedented exposure to many more counter views too. Over time, this alone has the potential of unshackling more and more Indians from the carefully crafted and propagated pro-Congress agenda that has largely remained unchallenged till now. But hecklers - some of them, like Sanghvi, are actually hilarious at times - are not going to achieve much beyond forcing semantic modifications.

If the power of the net is to be successfully used to truly democratise, even liberate, India, the counterpoints - pun intended - must intellectually expose and defeat the dishonesty that has got into the very DNA of a large section of India's mainstream media, and cogently communicate alternate views honestly. Constructive criticism is also a very useful tool that can not only help widen knowledge and understanding, but can also, in some cases, lead to genuine introspection. Without taking any names, I must acknowledge that a heartening subtle change is already visible and can easily be seen by those who are willing to. But this is as yet too little and in too few individuals.

Together, these developments, if nurtured properly, can dissolve the growing apathy, even resignation, that is afflicting an increasing number of Indians, and harness it into the hope and involvement that is needed to build a new and truly modern but rooted India that is proud of itself. Now that you and I can make a difference, thanks to the new media, we must utilise this exciting opportunity to do our bit, no matter how little.

Picture: Indian Bloggers Nest
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