SONIA, THE NEW QUEEN VICTORIA

One did not expect Left-liberals, geographically and culturally displaced as many of them they are, to join the dots crying to be put together. But the fact that their poor cousins across the fence have not noticed, or have pretended not to, gives an indication of how decisively the balance of power has shifted and got concentrated in the last few years.

The Wikileaks on Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi are far more significant and, at a fundamental level, much more disturbing than appears at first glance. They confirm the belief of many that under the unquestioned leadership of the duo, a paradigm shift has taken place in the very idea of India. This change, cleverly disguised as political, is actually deeply cultural, even civilisational.

Although she rules India and has been in the spotlight for a long time, little is known about what and who Sonia Gandhi really is as a person, and what her beliefs and ideologies are, except that she an Italian by birth and a Roman Catholic by baptism. As per the leaked American Embassy cable, after meeting Sonia Maria Shriver comes away with an impression that she “presents an intriguing enigma of a warm private personality that remains concealed and is available only to her closest confidants and family members.” The same can be said about Rahul Gandhi too; few Indians know what his views are about anything, much less what his vision for India is, if there is any that is.

Vir Sanghvi, the belatedly exposed and disgraced on-hire “dresser” of stories, had, a few years back, given India a tiny first-hand peek into Sonia Gandhi’s mind when he quoted her as telling him that she abhorred the Hindu right. At that time it was only logically viewed by most as a continuation of the inherited political viewpoint of the secular Congress party, battling the BJP to rule India. But the same cannot be said now.

Shriver has unpeeled a very telling layer of Sonia Gandhi’s personality, one that explains why she took Indian citizenship only after Indira Gandhi’s assassination in 1984, when her husband Rajiv Gandhi suddenly became India’s Prime Minister. As per Shriver, “despite her carefully erected India persona, her basic Italian personality is clearly evident in her mannerisms, speech and interests.” (italics mine)

The saree, the pallu, the well drafted speeches in Hindi and the few carefully choreographed interviews, then, are manifestations of political compulsion, not genuine interest in or understanding of India; Sonia's "Indianness" remains as notional as it was before 1984. Her “inherent opposition to the social conservatism of the Hindu right” likely flows from her European and Christian moorings. She is almost the new Roman Brahmin; her view is not simply political. But since it fits nicely with the manufactured secular-communal divide that is the bedrock of Congress party’s political strategy, the deceit has remained unnoticed by all except trusted Indian courtiers who have not talked.

Rahul Gandhi, Wikileaks all but confirms, is more a chip of the Italian block than of the family whose surname he carries.

Little is known about the young Gandhi’s religious and cultural beliefs. Publicly he has been saying that he is blind to religion and that the Indian flag is his religion. But, a couple of months back he gave a glimpse of his leanings when he shocked the whole nation by equating the RSS with the banned SIMI that eulogises Ghaznavi, rejects democracy and secularism, and aims, with the help of Pakistan and terror, to establish an Islamic state in the whole of India. A furore followed but died quickly, helped by a pliant media and the widespread perception that Rahul Gandhi is still a “baba”, who has much to learn.

But, this was not an isolated and immature political remark made to garner Muslim votes by playing down SIMI’s agenda that mirrors that of state sponsored/protected Pakistani outfits like the LeT. Rahul’s exaggerated abhorrence, as it were, for the Hindu right would have remained under the wraps but for Wikileaks. As per a leaked cable, US ambassador Roemer recalled Gandhi saying to him over lunch in 2009. "Although there was evidence of some support for Laskar-e-Taiba among certain elements in India's indigenous Muslim community, the bigger threat may be the growth of radicalised Hindu groups, which create religious tensions and political confrontations with the Muslim community."

This is difficult to believe, much less swallow. The Prime Minister and others have been saying for years that the greatest threat that India faces is from Maoists. The whole world is grappling with the threat of Islamist terror. India has been battling it for over two decades and thousands of innocent Indians have lost their lives in numerous terror attacks, the worst being 26/11. How can any informed Indian, much less a future PM, one who has access to information not available in the public domain, say – and that too not to Indians but a foreigner -- that a few radicalised Hindus are a greater threat to India than the LeT helped by some Indian Muslims, SIMI, IM etc? The only ones who will readily share this view are the Pakistanis and, let it be said, aggressive Christian missionaries, not to forget the liberals who are often – some unsuspectingly – the secular mask of the latter.

Arundhati Roy, daughter of a Hindu father and a Christian mother, articulates openly what Sonia and Rahul Gandhi cannot, for obvious reasons. Roy says India is not a sovereign, democratic, secular republic. She calls it is a corporate, Hindu satellite state, or an essentially upper caste Hindu state. The hatred for all things Hindu is unconcealed in her speeches and writings. She equates Hindu organisations – the “socially conservative” Hindu right of Sonia -- working for the upliftment of the tribals in Maoist affected areas with Nazis. She has not one to say word against the Christian NGOs and missionaries either doing the same and/or converting Hindus – Muslims they will not dare -- to Christianity in the jungles of Dandakaranya or anywhere else in the country. That is why she projects Maoists as fighting against a “Hindu” state, as she does Kashmiri Muslims, who she has convinced herself were discriminated against by their Hindu king before 1947.

In a similar vein, Digivjay Singh, former Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, and reportedly right hand man of Rahul Gandhi, has also been vocalising what the latter cannot in as many words. Initially, he mindlessly repeated what the original plan of Pakistan and some Indians was: 26/11 attack was a RSS conspiracy. Mind you, had Ajmal Kasab not been captured alive, this is what would have been passed off as the truth by the Congress party, much to Pakistan's glee. Although Singh backed off in the face of severe criticism, he continues to allege that ATS chief Hemant Karkare was under threat of and was shot by Hindu terrorists. He was snubbed by Karkare's widow and failed to provide any evidence of his claim that Karkare has rung him up about the danger he was facing. But this ex-royal has so lost his mind and integrity to his master that, tacitly encouraged by Rahul, he continues to try and make the RSS look a far more lethal and anti-India terror organisation then any that Pakistan has been able to produce till now, perhaps even more dangerous than the Al Qaida.

This battle is clearly not political and is not limited to the RSS or the Sangh parivar. The leader-inspired hatred is visceral, the kind no one today exhibits even for Pakistan which, in fact, is now being almost fawningly courted with an eye not just on Muslim votes but also to ensure that the deeper war against Hinduism itself is not challenged or deflected either socially or electorally. The message is unambiguous: if you speak of and for Hinduism beyond the four walls of your house, you are not just communal, you are radical, you are anti-national, you are a bigger threat than even the LeT to the new 'India' that Sonia is attempting to forge.

In sum, under Sonia’s rule, Hinduism is being subtly projected as oppressive, fascist, backward, anti-secular, even anti-Indian. No wonder Roy believes, and rightly so as is now evident, that Sonia and Rahul -- the “People’s Prince” as she calls him fondly -- are not part of this Hindu state. They are here to rid India of the Hindu tag. That is the new definition of secular. That is why things have come to such a pass that the moment anyone utters the word ”Hindu” positively, he becomes an untouchable; to pass muster as a secular Indian, you have to openly criticise everything Hindu, see no good in the religion, and do exactly the opposite in respect of Islam and Christianity. That is why, to give an example, the moment a Hindu swami is found having consensual sex, the media plays the tapes 24/7, hitting at the religion through the person. That is why when the entire Western media is full of news about pedophile Christian priests and questions the Pope on his handling of many such cases, the media, crawling and corrupt, blocks out the news totally. India’s tragedy is that its smug, deracinated, copy-cat zombies who influence public opinion either cannot see, or do not wish to, the insidious dynamics at work.

Sonia’s limited connect with, and interest in, India is manifestly driven by her desire to rule it, whatever it takes, and ensure that her son wears the crown. She has no time or respect for its ancient culture or any or its religions. May be a coincidence, but Priyanka’s husband is Robert, whose mother was of Scottish origin; the names of her two children, Raihan and Miraya, are not Indian. Rahul’s girlfriend, the one he is likely to marry, is a Columbian. The Nehru-Gandhi family is, for all practical purposes, now a European family. That is why, aided actively by a media populated by similarly cross-bred journalists, and a few Rajput royals, among others, selling their — and India’s -- souls again, another attempt is being made to uproot India from India, to erase it from this land, may be even partition it once again. Unbridled, unprincipled plunder, the tried and tested grease of the invader and coloniser, is again being effectively employed to create, buy, keep firmly in line greedy, myopic, even motherless tribal chieftains, and the throne secure.

Sonia, make no mistake, is the new Queen Victoria.
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MUSLIMS AND HINDUS, THE GOOD GUYS AND THE BAD

A couple of years back, a friend of mine was looking for a tenant for his flat. A property dealer rang him up to say that he had a 'party' that was willing to pay twice the going rate. Intrigued by this unexpected offer, coming as it was from three students, he asked about their backgrounds. The answer was not surprising: they were from the Valley.

His answer was immediate and negative. Was it because they were Muslims, I asked? No, he said, and I believe him, he would have given the same reply had they been Hindus or Sikhs whose parents were still in the Valley. He simply did not want to risk getting involved in any anti-national activity, willing or coerced. The boys might have been perfectly innocent, but he had no way of knowing that. And the sweetened deal, which would have been made even sweeter, was not going to tempt him to make himself vulnerable to all kinds of avoidable complications and troubles.

Unfortunately, our English media, populated by numerous rootless wonders, have been running programs and publishing columns on how Muslims are being unfairly discriminated against in cities and towns when it comes, among other things, to letting houses and flats. The villains, as you would have have guessed by now, are primarily Hindus like my friend and, by extension, me. We and our religion, according to these preachers of a modernity that is disconnected to and, in many cases in denial of, historical and contemporary societal dynamics, are standing in the way of India becoming a truly secular nation and the society becoming genuinely cosmopolitan, the kind they want their kids to grow up in, the kind in which kids of the three Khans of Bollywood are going to grow up.

In this perfect KJo film world of theirs, India's Muslims are the secular and progressive guys and Hindus who have not broken free of their dirty religion are the communal and regressive goons who are anti-Muslim, anti-change, anti-secular.

A couple of days back, Rajdeep Sardesai's CNN IBN telecast yet another sting operation whose prime objective could only have been to incite hatred in Muslims against Hindus and to convince impressionable deracinated Hindus, many of whom will never personally experience a difficult Hindu-Muslim situation in their lives, that ordinary Hindus detest Muslims and do not want to socially engage with them for no real reason except hate. It showed that they do not let flats to Muslims in Mumbai and are, thus, most guilty of ghettoising urban India.

As if on cue, Shobhaa De followed it up with a column today about how Muslims are being denied admission into colleges of repute in the city, two years after 26/11. The city -- read Hindus -- is marginalising Muslims, she says, adding helpfully that it is a fact that everybody knows but nobody talks about. Though she rightly concludes that we must not forget 26/11 which was the handiwork of hardcore terrorists, she too blames Hindus for "killing the spirit of innocence" of young Muslims.

Can it be anybody's case that a community can remain completely insulated from the actions of a few, particularly when there is a long history that dishonest historians want people to forget but which gets transmitted, as it has for thousands of years, from generation to generation? Can anyone claim that ordinary citizens are blind to the legacy of India's Partition that is awakened every time there is a terror attack by terrorists who recall the religious divide that led to it? Can anyone believe that ordinary people are unaware of what is happening in Kashmir?

When the Khalistani movement was at its peak, people were afraid to let out their houses to Sikhs. This was despite the fact that there had never been any animosity or hatred between Hindus and Sikhs ever. All that has been forgotten because post that unfortunate phase, Sikhs have not built walls around themselves or done anything that may fracture social relations. Their distinct religious identity does not come in the way of their being socially secular and more progressive than most other Indians. Can the same be honestly said about Muslims who chose a secular India over Pakistan after Partition?

Who is really marginalising Muslims in India? Is it the Hindus or is it Muslim religious and political leaders who are deliberately, sometimes provocatively, widening the social and political gap between them and Indians professing other faiths? What is Zakir Naik effectively achieving under the garb of teaching Islam? Is not the Deoband seminary guided Jamiat-Ulama-I-Hind attempting to effectively quarantine India's Muslims, to make them secede from India socially, and by natural progression, politically in the long run? Is SIMI not already engaged in the pursuit of that long-term objective, an Islamic state in India, directly and through its sword arm, the Indian Mujahideen? Does anyone need night vision goggles to see what Deoband-inspired ideology has already done to Pakistan, what Pakistan in turn is threatening to do to India by cleverly inciting Indian Muslims?

Why, then, are the dangers of marginalisation seen by those cocooned in Pali Hill only when the rest of the society tries to protect its way of life and even itself from real danger, but not when Muslim leaders and organisations build bigger walls in the name of religion to abdicate their responsibility to adjust to a multi-religious society? Why are Hindus always shown to be the bad guys and Muslims the aggrieved, helpless minority? Why is it that no one has made any attempt to address the unshakable belief of Mumbaikars that powerful locals and politicians were involved in 26/11, or to assuage their fear that terrorists will strike again? Is the marginalisation of Muslims in Gujarat going to be reduced or increased by endlessly blaming Narendra Modi and Hindus for the riots that followed the burning of the rail coach carrying Kar Sevaks at Godhra?

Fear of Muslim reaction only partly explains the pusillanimity of the so-called secular elite. It is also apparent that some distinguished members of this club have lost touch with much of their own selves and reality, past and present, and live in another world. That is one reason why they are unknowingly setting the stage for unprecedented violence by fanning -- and that too from the wrong direction -- completely avoidable communal hatred and intolerance while pretending to do the opposite.

Somehow they seem to have convinced themselves that being anti-Hindu is a prerequisite for being pro-Muslim and modern. This is the disastrous formula they are using to dampen the spirit, the confidence, the belief of those who have not yet lost their memories, their pride and their connect with the soul of the living religion of their ancient land, and turn them into a defeated people and their religion into a joke that befits being followed only by inferior and unintelligent people who belong to medieval times.

Perhaps in their hearts some of them know that this is a fundamentally illogical stance. But they continue to pursue it possibly because they believe it is this that has driven Muslims into the lap of the Congress and also pulled impressionable, rootless Hindus to it out of disgust for their religion and co-religionists. They have also manifestly convinced the even more rootless Congress dynastic leadership, or the other way round, that this is a winning formula at the electoral box office, one that has delivered two consecutive hits, one that is fail-proof, given the arithmetic of the electorate. The fruit that it has yielded to them is too sweet to let go.

So, bad guys, if you really want to get rid of the black mark that you are being stamped with relentlessly and save India from the cauldron into which it is being pushed, there is much you need to do. But all will come to naught unless you find a way to beat the arithmetic.

Related reading: For the today of a few, the tomorrow of India
'

SECULARISM: FROM 16 ANNAS TO 16 PERCENT

Secularism, the ideal, was adopted as the "official religion" of free India. The idea behind it was as simple as it was profound: every Indian, irrespective of personal faith, was an equal stakeholder of the new state. Unlike the breakaway Pakistan that chose to count only Muslims annas -- a rupee had 16 annas those days, not 100 paise -- as primary citizens with full rights in all walks of life, India chose the 16-anna model.

63 years down the road, in Pakistan not only have the 'khota' annas (non-Muslims and heretic Muslims) all but disappeared, the prized annas too are in danger. The new coins being minted do not have Jinnah's face on them. Laden, Hafiz Sayeed, Jihad and the like are already the new and only legal tender across vast swathes of that country, poised to either take it over or perish in spectacular flames.

In India, the anna has yielded to the paisa, both literally and metaphorically. Particularly in politics. No political party thinks or talks of 16 annas any longer except in vague generalities which mean absolutely nothing. When it comes to doing or getting something tangible -- and that to a politician means power and money -- the paisa takes over. Now 100 is a lot more than 16 and, therefore, much easier to "cut". And that is precisely what has happened. So, whether it is a business deal, a contract, a licence, or some such instrument created to enrich the politician (and the babu), percentages determine decisions and outcomes, rare exceptions apart.

Pecuniary corruption exists in every nation, though it is not quite so pervasive as in India and some other countries growing large banana plantations. While that is a disease that needs to be urgently attended to in India, the real, the one that should be ringing alarm bells, but is chiming instead, is political corruption that strikes at the very foundations of secularism.

Admittedly, our founding fathers were somewhat guilty of taking the SC/ST chavanni out of the 16 Annas. It is they who started what has become the mess of reservations, the abdication of responsibility of the rulers for their failures to deliver what they had promised when India became free. Of course, no one can accuse them of dividing society for petty political gains, and that too when they did it temporarily to right a historical injustice. They also can't be fully blamed if their less than worthy successors converted the chavanni into 25% on a permanent basis and then set in motion a dynamic that has already cut the original 16 Annas into percentages ranging from one to 27, the latter being the OBC cut that a certain VP Singh inflicted on an unsuspecting India purely for petty political gain. That did not materialise for him but it gave his fellow politicians many more percentages to divide the Indian rupee into and reduce India's secularism and democracy into the farce that it has become now except, ironically, for those who have seceded from it and organised their lives in comfortable cocoons.

These days, the hottest prize that politicians are salivating over is Bihar. To be more precise, the prize their gaze is fixed on is the 16% Muslim vote, a "bank" that they see as the difference between victory and defeat, between political wilderness and the untold riches that power promises and delivers. We are not talking only of regional parties with extremely limited interests and vision but extremely large expectations and ambitions. We are talking of national parties, including those whose historical appeal was the 16-anna one of the rupee before 1947 and what remained of it thereafter.

Much of the remaining 84% politicians have already cut up divided into small parts among themselves, giving the likes of Laloo Yadav, for example, disproportionate power and leverage, and the heady arrogance that they are above and beyond the law and the land. The 16% in focus now is not just defined by religion: it is most amenable to bulk voting based on religious dictat. Now this makes the division starkly communal by whichever definition you look at it. But, that does not daunt our politicians. They have managed to secularise even this exclusive piece by calling it "inclusive". No lessons have been learnt from the manner in which secularism has been hijacked by political parties and leaders who have gained power solely on the basis of votes of certain castes and communities, and who have blatantly corrupted all instruments that they can to unfairly 'reward' those of their castes/communities in return.

Now the game is to create even more, even smaller, pieces from the remaining general pie. That is the real reason for the demand for a caste census, reservation for Muslims and, at one level, women in Parliament. Let us face one simple truth: no piece can be termed to be "inclusive". The moment you lavish attention on one and give it an entitlement for anything, it has to be at the expense of another. Worse, the moment you appease one, you set in motion social dynamics that can have disastrous consequences even after and for decades. But who cares? The ones who should have protected themselves from its effects; they are not going to be personally impacted by any social or communal churning and violence except if and when it reaches the 'Bastille'. Since there is still no evidence of that happening -- the Indian cake being so hopelessly divided and weakened -- nothing is going to stop them from doing what they are.

The business of politics is now about grabbing and retaining power. All means fair. That is why secularism has slid from the 16-anna avatar it was conceived as to the 16% one we are seeing today and the 1.6% plutocracy that our politicians are in the process of turning it into, to ensure that India passes again into the hands of less than a thousand families and dynasties. Secularism is now little more than a political condom.

AKBAR TURNS JINNAH, ASKS FOR A MUSLIM STATE

"What the Muslims... are looking for... is a defined political space within which they can find food-and-faith security." Were these words uttered by MA Jinnah a little before he formally articulated the demand for a separate nation, a homeland, for all Muslims of India? Not at all. 63 years after India was violently divided on the premise that Hindus and Muslims cannot live together, a well-known and secular Muslim journalist and writer has quietly re-voiced what is essentially that very demand on that very unstated premise. On behalf of Indian Muslims who, in 1947, chose a secular India over an Islamic Pakistan.

MJ Akbar, writing in the Times of India of November 15, 2009, has, in one stroke, felled the very concept of secularism on which India is founded, by reiterating that not just mullahs, but even so-called secular Muslims like him, place their religious identity above all else. Should India be surprised? If a Westernised, whiskey-drinking, pork-eating, non-practicing Muslim like MA Jinnah could effortlessly don a separatist, communal coat and tear the country apart, are the likes of MJ Akbar going to face any difficulty in doing a volte face and attempting an encore?

Akbar, conscious of the heavy baggage of history, has begun with a call for carving a separate state in western Uttar Pradesh, comprising of areas where Muslims live in large numbers. "Such a state will have a substantive Muslim population, as well as a string of important Muslim educational institutions, from Aligarh to Deoband. It will become a natural socio-economic magnet for Muslims of the north." Pakistan was also visualised as a similar "magnet" for Muslim iron filings programmed to crowd out those following other faiths. Kashmir Valley, a part of India still, is another such magnet where the outcome has been duplicated.

It is evident that MJ Akbar has not thought up this pernicious demand on his own. It is probably being debated quietly among the clergy and has, not surprisingly, struck a chord with progressive and secular Muslims too. To give it concrete shape, the strategy being worked on is to find a vulnerable politician or political party ready to sell this nation to communal, divisive and regressive elements in exchange for captive Muslim votes, only to grab power at any cost and then loot the nation. Remember how some secular leaders like Mulayam Yadav and Amar Singh kept saying for a long time that SIMI was a secular organisation? Remember how some of them behaved after the Batla House encounter?

MJ Akbar says that the Congress has nothing new to offer to Muslims and that they have gone back to it due to lack of choice. So, he has zeroed in on Mulayam Yadav to "unlock the next dimension of Muslim demands", the one mentioned above being the first. This, in all likelihood will unleash a race between the Congress and Mulayam Yadav, both desperate to claim credit for conceding this demand, even if it is done obliquely by calling it "Harit Pradesh". In this unholy fight, many rootless media luminaries who sound like Congress party spokesmen will help the Congress by generating a wave of public opinion in TV studios and newspapers in support of India's first communally carved state.

Just a few days back, the Jamiat Ulama-e-Hind passed a series of resolutions in Deoband which effectively rejected secularism completely and asked Muslims to look at themselves solely from the prism of a version of Islam that is followed by the Taliban in Pakistan too. Ominously, media discussion was limited to the issue of Vande Mataram only. Forget flinging of panties, those who cry murder at the slightest pretext otherwise, did not even open their mouths. It must be mentioned that the Deoband seminary from which both the Jamiat and the Taliban draw ideological guidance is going to be part of the new "Muslim" state that Akbar wants secular India to create.

Before Independence, the Congress blundered in not taking the challenge posed by separatist Muslim leaders seriously enough, and was stunned into submission by the violence that Jinnah unleashed with his call for Direct Action in 1946. This happened despite the fact that the party had giant leaders of spotless integrity and credentials. Now, India has few real leaders. Most so-called leaders have become businessmen and view politics as the fastest, safest and surest way to ill-gotten billions. Propagation and protection of dynasties has, as a direct result, become their primary concern. Such leaders can do anything. With eyes wide open, all faculties working. MJ Akbar has spotted in Mulayam Yadav what many believe is the most vulnerable and the most easily corruptible target. He also knows that this will have, at some stage, a domino effect as greedy politicians try every unacceptable trick to quench their almost totally unprincipled lust for power and pelf.

To my mind, the question is very simple. Are Indian citizens who are Muslims not ever going to look beyond their faith, not as a personal belief but as a communal, political tool? Are 15 crore Muslims really a minority in India when, as everyone knows, there is really no "Hindu" majority at all? What do we call Yadavs who vote for Mulayam Yadav? Or dalits who vote for Mayawati? Or Tamilians who vote for Karunanidhi or Jayalalitha? Where and who are the so-called "Hindus" who are oppressing Muslims and denying them their faith? Why are Muslims again seeking power communally as Muslims alone? Why do the same Muslims rush to denounce those who talk of Hindus as a whole and call them fascists?

In the dispensation that presently rules India, where are the Hindus? The PM is a Sikh, Chairman UPA, Sonia Gandhi, is a Catholic and her closest advisor, Ahmed Patel is a Muslim. Many other persons in her powerful inner circle like Oscar Fernandes, Ghulam Nabi Azad, AK Antony, Tom Vadakkan, Margaret Alva (she used to be Rahul's nanny on many outstation visits earlier) etc are all non-Hindus. In fact even many of the other so-called Hindus in this power ring, including media stooges, are actually rootless atheists who equate secularism with an abhorrence for the religion of their birth.

However imperfect, this is secularism at work and as Indians we are all proud of it. The question is: if it is working for Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists, Jains and others, why are Muslims, even secular ones, having a problem with it?

Had this demand for a separate Muslim dominated state been made by a fundamentalist group that believes that it is the duty of all Muslims to establish the political rule of Islam over the whole world, one could have given it a miss. But when a leading secular media luminary articulates it, however subtly, it must ring alarm bells immediately everywhere.

People have forgotten that the idea of Pakistan had a lot to do with principle of religion based reservations. This "splittist" idea is again being flirted with very seriously by the same amnesic political party which presided over the Partition of this nation. The manner in which the Congress instituted the manifestly pre-programmed Sachar Committee with a clearly communal political objective in mind, is indication enough that the party has not learnt any lesson from history.

That is not surprising, considering the people who wield all the power in the party. Therefore, though it talks of secularism, there is little doubt that it will now even more readily capitulate to communal demands than it did before Independence. All that the coterie has to do is keep its First Family happy and in business. One example of the dangerous dynamics that are being mindlessly - or is it deliberately? - being set in motion is the recommendation of the Sachar Committee to do away with reserved constituencies where Muslims are in greater proportion in numbers than dalits. Why this change only on the basis of religion in a secular country? Why not in constituencies where other communities of other religions are similarly placed?

MJ Akbar is already speaking of the next dimension of Muslim demands after the first repeat of communal division already under implementation. He has undoubtedly studied Jinnah and Partition of India in great detail. India's leaders and media stars have either forgotten about it or have not bothered to read about it at all. In fact many want to pretend it never happened, because they do not know how to handle their vacuous notions of secularism with that reality in their face.

What do you think will be the next step after this "magnet" for Muslims becomes a reality right next to Delhi? More and more Muslims will systematically migrate to the new state till their numbers reach a level where only a Muslim party is in a position to form the government there. Then the bargaining power of Muslims will increase exponentially and communal demands will increasingly become more strident and uncompromising. Deja vu. Given the manner in which an Islamic Pakistan is imploding today, thanks to the Deoband-inspired ideology of the Taliban, and considering what has happened in Kashmir, one needs little imagination to visualise the danger that India will put itself in in the long run.

Muslims have never been suppressed by "Hindus" anywhere at any time in India's history. They have fallen behind primarily because they have fallen prey to isolationist religious leaders who are afraid of losing their hold over them and who want to use them as pawns in their political power games. The security-and-space ruse being thrown now is the same old lie that has been repeated everywhere; the ultimate objective is always the same: to seize power or to force a division on a communal basis whenever and wherever the numbers are right.

India's secularists never tire of speaking about the secular Mohammad Iqbal who penned the immortal "Saarey jahan se achha". But they don't want to be reminded that the same Iqbal was the leading ideologue and co-creator of Pakistan. They want to limit their vision to Dr Jekylls only and pretend that there were no Mr Hydes who violently hacked India on a communal basis. Unless they open their eyes to both dimensions, they will never see the events that shaped India's recent history in the correct perspective, and will wind up helping the likes of Akbar push India into repeating old mistakes and more.

Will India's so-called leaders, particularly the ones who fraudulently call themselves secular, wake up and put the nation above their narrow interests and ensure that the communal virus that first rejected India and secularism more than 70 years ago is not allowed to spread again and destroy the very idea of a secular, inclusive India?

We must not forget that there is no Raj and there is no British Indian Army too now. When things spin out of control next, ignited by a tiny spark somewhere, the fires will not die down and the dead will be beyond count.

MUMBAI 26/11: WHY IS THE GOVT SHIELDING LOCALS?

First it was Mumbai Police Commissioner Hasan Gafoor who said it openly in a televised press conference, only to retract his statement a few hours later under pressure. Then it was the BBC that made that claim in a TV program. Now it is the FBI that has provided solid evidence that proves that the terrorists who attacked Mumbai on November 26, 2008 did get local support for their operation.

Ever since 26/11, there has been a lot of speculation about the extent of local help that was provided to the terrorists who carried out the biggest terror attack ever in India. The Congress led governments both in Maharashtra and the Centre have, however, been consistently maintaining that the attack was planned in Pakistan and executed by Pakistanis who had no local help at any stage from any Indian except Fahim Ansari and Sahabuddin, both of who have been arrested by the police.

When Gafoor first dropped a bombshell by telling the media that "fourteen to sixteen men, which includes Indians and Pakistanis, are are wanted in the attacks", the government got him to clumsily retract his statement within hours to say that the "wanted" list, yes, included all the nine dead terrorists and Ajmal Kasab who had already been captured alive, and that the only two Indians in the list were also already in custody.

It is worth recapitulating certain significant facts pointing to strong local support that had emerged immediately after the attacks but about which no follow up action has manifestly been taken:

• Naval commandos who were among the first to engage terrorists in Taj Hotel recovered a rucksack left behind by them. The contents of this rucksack were shown by many TV channels and included, among other things, cash and seven credit cards including those of top Indian banks like the ICICI, HSBC, HDFC, Axis and CITI bank. Fake Indian identity cards were also found on the person of all terrorists. Ajmal Kasab, the lone terrorist captured alive, was carrying a fake ID card of Arunodaya Degree College of Hyderabad, in the name of Naresh Verma. Who got these cards made in India for the terrorists?
• The terrorists were completely familiar with the layout of the hotels and moved around the buildings with practiced ease. Their knowledge of the layout was first brought out by the Naval commandos and later confirmed by Ratan Tata himself. "There seems to be no doubt that they knew their way around the hotel," he said, "They seemed to know it in the night, or in the daytime. They seemed to have planned their moves quite well, and there seem to have been a lot of pre-planning in terms of what they did and how they managed to carry on for three days and sustain themselves during that time." Was it possible for them to acquire such familiarity only on the basis of blueprints, as claimed by Gafoor?
• The way they were able to sustain themselves for three days without running out of ammunition and explosives suggests that much more of the lethal stuff than they carried in their rucksacks had been smuggled into the hotel prior to the attack and placed at locations precisely marked during previous reconnaissance missions. Who placed them there?
• The terrorists were supposed to sink the boat they used to land in Mumbai, but had planned to get away safely after completing their operations. It means that they would have known the safe location to where they were to go to they to go, before evetually making their way back to Pakistan by a different route. Could such a get away have been possible without serious logistic support on Indian soil?

For almost eight months now, Indians have been led to believe by their own government that ten young boys just landed up from Pakistan in Mumbai by sea and held the city to ransom for 60 hours, all on their own. When Narendra Modi first echoed the question that was in the minds of most Indians by saying that the "smallest of persons knows" that a terror attack of this scale could not have been launched without some local support, Home Minister Chidambaram responded by asking in turn whether Modi was in contact with Pakistan. The position that no locals were involved was reiterated by him just 10 days back. But now it seems that the truth that the government has been trying so hard to hide from its own people is beginning to surface uncomfortably for it.

In a program telecast on June 29, the BBC made the startling claim that it was spotters on the ground who kept the handlers of the terrorists informed about the exact position of the security forces, enabling the former to direct events minute-by-minute, routing calls over the internet. BBC correspondent Richard Watson said that they knew every move that the police were making as the crisis unfolded, and that it was unlikely that this information was obtained by them from live TV coverage shots. This stance was, predictably, rejected by Mumbai police who maintain that the attack was carried out by a "totally independent module of ten terrorists" launched from Pakistan.

The most damning documentary evidence of all, however, has been made available by the FBI in its report to the Mumbai crime branch, as reported in the Hindustan Times of July 11, 2009. As per the FBI provided logs of the phone calls made by the handlers of the terrorists to "numerous phones in Mumbai, Pune and Nashik", they were in touch with local contacts between November 23 and 28. During this period, they made 91 calls to 23 mobile phones and 10 land line phones using 30 VOIP connections. The first call was made three days before the attack to a Delhi land line number. Details of calls made have since been published in HT and can be found here.

As per the HT report, none of the people who took these calls have been identified, let alone investigated. Why has no effort been made by the police to find out details, and more, about the 33 recipients of these calls? The handlers of the terrorists were surely not calling their relatives in India to just greet them during those few days.

It is becoming increasingly evident that investigation into the involvement of local LeT modules and/or individuals in the Mumbai terror attack has not been been stonewalled either accidentally or on the orders of local functionaries. A conscious decision seems to have been taken to do so by some very responsible people in the government. Mumbai's Police Commissioner would not have retracted his statement had he not received orders to do so from the highest echelons in the central government.

The question is: why is the government so adamantly shielding locals who have waged war against India? Is it because those involved are so politically powerful that they can damage the electoral prospects of the alliance in power in Maharashtra and Delhi?Are the lives of India's innocent citizens and the country's security less important than retention of political power?

Is this the unacceptable price that India will have to pay from now on for being a secular democracy?

WHO CAN PROTECT INDIA'S SECULARISM? CONGRESS OR BJP?

A very significant development that is deeply linked to India's past and that can have a profound bearing on its future has gone almost unnoticed in a modern, secular India that either seems to have forgotten lessons from its history or simply does not want to recall them.

Maulana Badruddin Ajmal, who had launched a Muslim party, the Assam United Democratic Front(AUDF) in 2005, is now planning to repeat his successful experiment at the national level. In Assam, AUDF is fighting the Lok Sabha elections as the dominant partner in an alliance with champions of secularism like the CPI, CPM and the NCP, and is taking on the Congress, the BJP and the AGP. In 2005 Assembly elections, the party had got 18% of the votes cast, and hopes to do much better this time.

What led to the launch of a Muslim party and the rejection of the Congress by the Muslims of Assam? Sheer numbers. That is it. The Muslim population has grown rapidly in the state. It was 30.91% of the state's population in 2001 and, given the trend of growth, will be much more today. There are six Muslim majority districts in Assam now; in 1951, there were none.

Now that the percentage of Muslims in Assam has reached a significant threshold, Muslims can openly say that they no longer need to "suffer" under the umbrella of a "secular" but Hindu political party to meet their aspirations. It is numbers alone that make Badruddin say that the policies of the Congress, yes Congress, have been anti-Muslim. Heard that before? Yes, that is almost exactly what Western educated and modern Indian Muslim leaders led by MA Jinnah used to say before Partition.

There are pockets of significant Muslim population in other parts of India too. Maulana Badruddin now wants to consolidate them under an All-India Muslim party. In December 2008, Muslims of Maharashtra, fed up with the "slavery of the Congress" since 1947, asked him in to repeat the Assam experiment in the state. In February this year, he announced the formation of a national party. In UP, in districts where the Muslim population is significant, the Ulema Council has put up seven candidates to fight the Lok Sabha elections. Five of its members have just been booked for passing insulting remarks against the national flag.

The idea behind this is very simple and has a historical basis. In future, if Muslims ally with Mulayam Yadav, for example, they will want to do that from a leadership position. Influential Muslim leaders, religious and political, do not want Muslims to depend on a Hindu leader to look after their interests; Muslims must believe that only Muslim leaders can be pro-Muslim and they alone should lead them.

This is exactly what MJ Akbar means, without saying as much, when he says that Muslims have realised that they too can do a Mayawati and forge a Muslim dominated alliance with other "secular" and caste based parties that are products of the fragmented Hindu vote. The comparison with Mayawati and dalits is specious, of course; Muslims have not been downtrodden or suppressed or untouchable for thousands of years, and dalits do not demand separate, communal laws. Despite that dissimilarity, the hard fact is that the Congress is not the party of choice for Muslims. It never was, despite its best but horribly failed efforts to projects itself as one. Had it been seen by Muslims in the light that it still wants to imagine itself in, before Independence, the country would never have been divided.

The only thing that is putting brakes on the vigorous launch of an pan India Muslim party is the big presence of the BJP. Not the Congress; that party is as irrelevant as it was in 1947. There is a worry among Muslim leaders that any aggressive launch of a Muslim communal party will awaken the ghost of Partition and lead to a consolidation of the presently terribly fragmented Hindu vote in favour of the BJP. And since the percentage of Muslims is not large enough to exploit the remaining and inevitable divisions among Hindus, the BJP will actually emerge stronger and come to power easily.

The argument both for and against a Muslim party or a Muslim led alliance has nothing whatsoever to do with secularism, if you have noticed. Maulana Badruddin's new Muslim party is anti-Congress as well as anti-BJP. It is only a question of time before it becomes anti-Left in West Bengal.

Had there been no strong "Hindu" party like the BJP around, by now - or in the near future - it would not have been the dalits led by Mayawati who would have been hoping to get to power in Delhi; Muslims led by the likes of Badruddin would have been calling the shots. Secularism would have taken on an even more absurd and dangerous and potentially explosive meaning than it already has. It would perhaps have died for Muslims altogether. The Sharia would probably have been implemented in full for Indian Muslims, just like it has been in Pakistan's Swat valley. The rotten rump of a failed secular Indian state would have been remained in existence only for non-Muslims, if at all.

If you think hard and deep, you cannot escape the paradoxical conclusion that it is the BJP, the so-called communal right wing Hindu party, and not the secular Congress, that is and will, perhaps unwittingly, be the real protector and guarantor of genuine secularism in India.

Let us for a moment go back in history and try to imagine what might have happened before Independence had there been a strong party like the BJP in existence even then. In the initial years after it was born, the Congress was the party of all Indians. But after the advent of the all-powerful Mahatma Gandhi, Muslims led by Jinnah broke away from it. To them, Congress became a party of and for Hindus because the leadership of the party, despite its genuine secular credentials, was in the hands of Hindus.

That mainly is how and why the Muslim League became the party of and for Muslims. Muslim leaders were not willing to accept demographic realities that, in a democracy, would have delivered a larger share of the power pie in the hands of Hindus. The secular argument simply cut no ice with them; it was political power alone that mattered. That is essentially what led to the demand for a separate homeland for all Indian Muslims and saw the creation of Pakistan.

Would Pakistan have ever become a reality had there been a BJP-type of party to face the challenge of the Muslim League? Consider this: Pakistan has a population of around 170 million, almost all Muslims, nearly all Hindus having been thrown out from there. Many Muslims left India for the promised land but many more chose to stay back. Today those who chose India number around 120 million. Had all or most of them too migrated to Pakistan, what do you think would have happened? Pakistan would have had more than twice its present population in the same real estate. Worse, migrants would have far outnumbered the original inhabitants. Punjabis who now constitute nearly half of Pakistan's population, would have been reduced to a small minority. The weight of the population, the fight over limited land and the inevitable ethnic clashes would have led to the collapse of Pakistan almost immediately.

Had the leaders of Muslim League seen that happening, they would most probably have dropped the idea of Pakistan altogether. But, ironically, it was the Congress that came to their rescue and helped give shape to their dream. The pains that it took to project itself as a party of Muslims too made sure that only a few Muslims went over to Pakistan. And that is how that country survived.

Had there been a BJP type party then, instead of the Congress, Muslims leaders would have immediately realised that a Pakistan would simply not survive the influx of so many Muslims from India. Ordinary Muslims both in what is now Pakistan and in the rest of India too would have been frightened by the magnitude of the disaster that was waiting to engulf them due to the migration of such a huge number of people. Punjabi Muslims and Sindhis would never have voted to turn themselves into minorities and allow the plunder of their lands by swarms of refugees coming from India, even if they were Muslims. Ethnicity would have prevailed over religion for very practical reasons. Jinnah would then have perhaps had no choice but to remain in a secular India and forget about a separate Muslim Pakistan.

The BJP is today what the Congress was accused by Muslims of being before 1947: a Hindu party. The fact is that the Congress never was and never can be a Hindu party, the term 'Hindu' loosely used to include Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists too. It has been and will remain a party that wants to believe that it is the secular voice of India's minorities, particularly Muslims. That is why it could not prevent Partition and that is also why it cannot develop a proper response to the danger that the re-birth of the Muslim League in a new avatar poses to the very foundations of secular India. It remains paralysed by the mortal but misplaced fear of being dubbed "communal" and even remotely anti-Muslim.

That is why, the truth is that despite all its warts, some ugly no doubt, it is the BJP, and not the Congress, that can ensure that India remains the secular state it is supposed to be, for all its citizens irrespective of their religion. The Congress can keep paying the price of not learning the right lessons from history; the nation cannot afford to, again.
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Readers may also read:
1. Islamic India, secular Pakistan
2. Secular Indian Mujahideen
3. Why tough terror law when attacks don't stop?
4. Islamic terrorism: Muslims in India like Jews in Nazi Germany?
5. Bangladeshis are Pakistanis, not Indians; send them back
6. The Antulay betrayal

WHERE ARE THE VOTERS OF AND FOR YOUNGISTAN?

Bangalore was supposed to be the showcase of a young, cosmopolitan, secular India that wanted to break free of the shackles of communal politics and octogenarian leaders. It was also the city that sections of India's media had been focusing on to highlight what they thought was a great rural-urban divide, and show to the rest of India and indeed the world that the young, vibrant India that they were showing in TV studios debates and chat shows was the real thing. What better way to prove you are right than through elections?

Unfortunately, after completion of polling for the second phase of the Lok Sabha elections, certain unpleasant home truths have started sinking in. Rajdeep Sardesai, among others, is angry that young voters did not come out to vote in Bangalore. The media were expecting a much better show, after all the hard work that they had put in to get young voters energised in what they believed was a manner that would strike a huge chord in them. For the record, the average turnout in the city was 46.66% compared to 51.5% in 2004. Worse, it was even lower at 44.73% in the most literate Bangalore South that boasted some great candidates, including Capt Gopinath.

What went wrong? Why did Youngistan not display the kind of keenness to make a difference that they should have, after the huge media focus on them, particularly in Karnataka? Why was there virtually no response to the sustained media campaign against the goons of the BJP and the Sangh Parivar for what they had been doing over the last couple of years in the state?

Remember how the whole nation was horrified at reports of churches being vandalised, apparently for no reason whatsoever, across the state, including Bangalore? Remember how Ram Muthalik and his supporters had beaten up boy and girls in a pub in Mangalore, to "protect" Indian culture? Remember how there were almost daily reports of how unsafe it had become for women to live in "BJP's" Karnataka, with them being molested regularly in safe Bangalore, arguably India's most modern and cosmopolitan city?

And who can forget the famous Pink Chaddi Campaign that a couple of journalists had launched in Delhi to awaken young, modern Indians to the grave danger being posed to the country by fascist goons of Muthalik's Ram Sene. If one had gone by the kind of blanket media coverage that campaign got in the visual and print media, one would have concluded that modern India was fed up with the backward-looking policies and fascist mindset of the BJP and its parivar, and was desperately looking for a new direction, the US firmly in sight.

25% of India's voters are under 35. India has perhaps the largest proportion of young voters in the world. Yet, India's leadership is largely in the hands of people who are in their seventies and eighties. These facts have been highlighted ad nauseum over the last couple of years in the media to motivate the youth to vote for young leaders who are in tune with their aspirations and mindsets. Campaigns like "Jaago Re" and Lead India, rock concerts, TV chat shows, blogs etc have all been creating so much of noise that it was taken for granted that the youth, India's Youngistan, would actually "shut up and vote" in these elections.





Why have both these broad strategies, one positive for a young and modern secular India represented by the Congress, and the other negative against a communal BJP, failed to enthuse voters of Youngistan to come out in Bangalore and elsewhere and say what was expected they would after such 'carpet bombing'?

It now appears that people who live in Bangalore are not enthused by all this talk of youth and modernity, and understand well that there is much more to leadership than age and pop music. Why only Bangalore? Even in his home state of UP, Rahul, Gandhi has not been able to make his presence felt beyond the family constituency of Amethi, where too just about 45% turned up to vote? And, if one takes into account the results of assembly elections in the last few years, it becomes clear that Rahul Gandhi has not been able to inspire Indians, young and old, anywhere in the country. Now, if one is unable to do that despite such a heavy duty surname and a fawning media pulling out all stops to promote him, surely the message that should not be missed is that people have not found in him what the are looking for in the leader of this country.

Similarly, the incessant hate campaign to make young voters vote against the BJP and, therefore, for Rahul's Congress, has not energised young voters of Bangalore to come out to vote the BJP out. Is it because they know more than what the rest of the nation has been told by the media? Or is it because they do not quite look at things in the manner that a few disconnected, rootless and politically motivated people who populate the media do? Or is it because they believe that this is actually a sick mind game being played by the media to make them vote for the Congress, which they think is as bad as, if not worse than, the BJP?

The contrast between the disinterest shown by educated and aware young voters of Bangalore in the Lok Sabha elections and the enthusiasm that was shown by voters in the US last year to elect Barack Obama has a big lesson for India's media and its politicians. Americans voted wholeheartedly for an unknown and inexperienced Obama not because they thought that John McCain was not good enough to be their President but because Obama fired their imagination and kindled their hopes in a manner that made them forget the colour of his skin. He was not created by the media; nor was McCain run down by anyone including Obama himself.

The silent but effective message given by the young voters of Bangalore, Pune and many other cities and towns should open many eyes. As things appear now, it seems that India's media have not only failed to achieve what they wanted to in these elections, but have also inadvertently made more formidable a couple of other political leaders in the opposite camp and brought them to the centre stage.

This is what happens when you are arrogant, out of touch with people and try to use a powerful medium to push a motivated political agenda through.
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Readers may also read:
1. Shame on Bangaloreans - keep it up
2. Biased Indian media: where's the truth?
3. Opinions, not opinion polls
4. Priyanka's political plunge: never say never
5. The Varun fiasco: who is not playing the communal card?
6. Will the Congress do better without Sonia and Rahul?
6. Valentine's Day: it's chaddi vs langot!
7. Tehelka uneraths a Prime Minister

TEESTA, AJMAL, VARUN AND THE SECULAR BRIGADE

If there is one Indian who has made the worst type of "hate speeches" and used all kinds of falsehoods to inflame Muslims against Hindus, and that too for years, it is the so-called social activist Teesta Setalvad. Yet despite all the venom that she has been spewing in a voice that seems to come from the grated gut of a bitter person who has never known love, she has been the darling of India's mainstream media and like-minded "secularists".

For her ceaseless efforts to fraudulently portray Hindus at large as cold-blooded rapists and murderers, Teesta has been praised, feted, quoted and admired by the rootless variety of Indians who are ever ready to pounce at the smallest of incidents that show Hindus to be the most intolerant and communal minded of all communities in India. Indeed, if one were to believe this lot which has a vice-like grip over the media, secularism survives in India only because of the unending sacrifices and unbreakable secular beliefs of Muslims and other religious minorities; given even a sliver of a chance, Hindus will make the Taliban look like angels.

Look at the awards this secular brigade and a grateful Congress government have heaped on Teesta:

• Padma Shri
• M.A.Thomas National Human Rights Award from the Vigil India Movement.
• Parliamentarians for Global Action 'Defender of Democracy' award, jointly with Helen Clark, the Prime Minister of New Zealand.
• The Nuernberg Human Rights Award
• The Nani A Palkhivala Award

Teesta, much like the violent river she is named after, might well have continued on her path of hate and falsehood and been awarded the Padma Bhushan next, had the SIT led by former CBI Director RK Raghavan not exposed the fact that she cooked up tales of macabre and wanton killings, tutored and threatened false witnesses and levelled false charges against Police Chief Pandey.

Remember that horrifying and unbelievable story about a mob gang raping a pregnant Muslim woman, Kausar Banu, and then gouging out her foetus with sharp weapons? That is an example of the utterly sick level to which Teesta descended in her campaign of brutal, unforgiving hate for which recourse to falsehood was not something that shamed her at all.

I am not able to determine whether it is Ms Setalvad who has done more harm to the nation with her sustained and bitter vitriol or it is the secular media which is responsible, first for promoting her campaign ad nauseum most irresponsibly because she spoke their secular language of hate and now by virtually shielding her from the public fury and wrath that she deserves.

Ajmal Kasab, the sole surviving Pakistani terrorist responsible for the Mumbai 26/11 terror attack was supposed to be the trump card that India had to expose Pakistan's hand in the blasts. Remember that thick dossier that India sent to Pakistan as "proof" based on his confessional statement? Remember Narendra Modi bringing out that when, thanks to the doing away of POTA, his confessional statement was not admissible as evidence even in India, how was Pakistan expected to accept it as nothing but the truth? Remember how everyone has been shouting that he should be give a "fair" trial and saying that it was an open and shut case that would be over in six months?

Kasab has killed many people in full glare of CCTV cameras in the only "secular" nation in the world where he can get away lightly. Not only is he going to get a "fair" trial, he is not going to convicted in a hurry, if at all. For all you know, he might even be released in a hostage situation, like we saw in the the case of the kidnapping of Rubiya Sayed and the Kandahar hijack. Although he is a foreign national who has waged war on India, he is being tried by a benign Indian judicial system designed to give him many years to live as a VIP prisoner.

SG Abbas Kazmi, the lawyer appointed to defend Ajmal, made it clear on the very first day of the trial that this is not a case which is going to get over in a hurry, all the evidence against him notwithstanding. First, he pleaded that Kasab was under 17 and, therefore should be tried by a juvenile court. When the court rejected that argument on the basis of the statement given by Kasab where he had said that he was 21 years old, Kazmi retracted that confession saying that it was made under duress. Kazmi is in no mood to "co-operate" with the prosecution to ensure that justice is done swiftly in this most straightforward and horrifying of cases that had the whole nation enraged. A protracted legal battle is certain.

What is Pakistan going to do now? It will throw Kasab's statement into the Arabian Sea and stop further investigation because this statement is not only not evidence under India law but has been denied by Kasab himself. There is more. Don’t be surprised if Pakistan sends across some proof that Kasab is 17 indeed. His mother may even come down to Mumbai and give such a statement. The way things are shaping in this case which Ram Jethmalani had boasted would be over in five minutes, Ajmal Kasab will probably never be hanged.

Is this what we call a "fair" trial when on the very first day of the trial it is beginning to look that he actually might get away despite all the evidence against him? Why is there no TV studio outrage at a defence lawyer for whom shameless use of utter falsehoods to protect the murderer of innocent Indians takes precedence over truth and the pain of the entire nation? Is Kazmi interested in justice or is he more than keen to help the foreign killer of many Indians get away by using unfair means? Where is his conscience as a citizen of India?

Will there be calls for re-introduction of the clause to include confessions made before a police officer as evidence? Will there be a demand for trying foreign nationals who wage war against India by a military or similar court expeditiously? You know the answer. What, in fact, is most likely to happen is that the secular media is soon going to start hounding the government for being unduly harsh on a delicate young boy who was led astray by the LeT that exploited his poverty. Human Rights activists will soon be made to appear on every TV channel to complain about the violation of Kasab's human rights and lecture India on how it needs to treat him fairly as a civilised nation. Similar views of "secular" Indian citizens will also be aired, to make the whole nation feel as if it is the real sinner harassing an innocent kid.

Cut to Varun Gandhi about whom I have written in detail in a few other posts. What is the verdict of the secular brigade in his case? He is guilty and "must not be allowed to get away". In fact he is so dangerous that he must be locked up under the draconian NSA which has not been used even to put behind bars terrorists-without-religion and their abettors responsible for killing faceless, expendable Indians. He says the CDs of his speech are doctored; of course he is lying. Why has he not proved that they are? Why should we even bother to ask those who did the sting to prove that their CDs are authentic, or take the trouble to do it ourselves? They appear to us to be authentic; we have seen and heard them. Nothing more is needed to pronounce him guilty and extremely dangerous for the secular fabric of this nation. A court decision will take years to come. We canot wait till then. Justice has to be administered instantly in this case which is even more water tight than Ajmal's. Varun must not be allowed to make political speeches and even contest elections. His guilt has already been established.

Why should a greenhorn politician like Varun Gandhi be declared guilty without trial? He has spoken "against" Muslims; that is just not acceptable. You are a secular hero only if you make hate speeches and do worse against Hindus, not for them. He has done the exact opposite, so what if it is only in one unverified speech. His is an unpardonable crime for which he deserves no mercy, no sympathy. Jail is the only place for him. Straightaway. In the secular India of our dreams, there is no place for communal politicians or parties who ask for the "Hindu" vote. We accept only secular parties who ask for the Muslim vote and/or those who ask for the vote of Hindus not as a whole but in fragments like Yadavs, Dalits, Reddys, Vokkaligas etc

Why should a dangerous hate-driven, communal monster like Teesta Setalvad be loaded with awards? This champion of secularism had no choice but to cook up ghastly incidents and tell all sorts of horrendous lies. That was the only way she could drive home the "truth" that Modi is a mass murderer and Hindus are cold-hearted barbarians who hate and kill peace-loving Muslims for no reason at all. She has done great service to the cause of a secular India. She is the great protector of helpless minorities. Forget punishment or condemnation, she, in fact, deserves many more awards.

Why should a Pakistani terrorist like Ajmal who killed scores of people in cold blood, be allowed to dishonestly exploit the big gaps in India's lax legal system? India must be seen as being "fair" to its Muslims; it should not appear to them that Kasab is being disadvantaged in any manner because he is a Muslim. So what if he is a Pakistani? He is a Muslim first. Secular India cannot be seen to be treating any Muslim with even the whiff of vendetta. That is why we did notask for a ban on SIMI, till it started indulging in violence. We know that it has been saying since 1977 that it does not believe in secularism or democracy, is waiting for another Ghaznavi and wants to establish the rule of Islam in India. You can't put people from the minority community into jail only because they say that their aim is to turn the whole of secular India into a theocratic Pakistan.
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Teesta, Ajmal and Varun. All of them are experiencing the might of India's very powerful secular and "liberal" activists who are completely and ruthlessly intolerant of any view that clashes with theirs. While Teesta and Ajmal are basking in their support, Varun is being singed by their fury. Teesta Setalvad is their ugly, dishonest, hate-filled face; Ajmal is the poster boy who they will use to show to the world how "fair" India is to its minorities who are reeling under the imaginary oppression of Hindus. Varun, a Gandhi, is the unexpected red rag who can ruin their party. They are not going to allow him or anyone else to do that. Come what may. Even if in the process, truth and morality have to be sacrificed with a cold, "Teesta"ease that can send shudders down your spine.
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Readers may also read:
1. Teesta's house in disarray
2. Teesta Setalvad and spicy cooking
3. You can fool all of the people, all of the time
4. This is about Gujarat, not Teesta
5. Gilani, Durrani, Kiyani, Biryani and the butcher!
6. The Varun sting: who is not playing the communal card?
7. Varun Gandhi: Wounded tiger on the prowl

CAN THE CONGRESS STEM ITS SLIDE?

The unending media cacophony over the Varun Gandhi "hate" CDs has made it appear as if the only choice that voters have in the forthcoming elections is between voting to power a "communal" BJP that is trying to divide the country by preaching/supporting hatred against Muslims and a "secular" Congress that is fighting against it. And, the message being rammed home through every possible trick in the book is that they must reject the former because the only party that can be trusted to maintain communal harmony across the country is the Indian National Congress. "Vote for Congress" is the call being given in unison by India's mainstream media whose political agenda has never been a big secret.

The Grand Old Party is today less than one third of what it was for a very long time after India's Independence. Despite solid media support, it continues to shrink and is set to replace the Left as the perennial pan-India rump that cannot rule on its own but has enough nuisance value in a fractured political landscape. Why is the party not able to stem the decline?

Arguably, one reason for this is that the Congress has morphed into a personality based party, just like most smaller regional parties that have mushroomed in the last couple of decades. It is no longer the party of the masses with a galaxy of tall leaders closely connected to and respected by people across the country. It is now effectively a vehicle for the protection and promotion of one branch of the Nehru-Gandhi family represented by Rahul Gandhi and overseen by Sonia Gandhi. The sole objective of a powerful coterie, aided by the media, is to ensure that any challenge to the leadership of this Gandhi is crushed before it becomes even a small threat.

When the only leader of a party is unable to be make any defining personal impact on the people even after being in business for seven long years, the party has to keep sliding downhill, and is. Unfortunately, no one in the Congress is tall enough to look in the mirror and begin the process of getting the party back to it roots, and re-establish its links with the people in every village and town of India. Till that happens, if at all, no amount of favourable media coverage is going to be of any real help.

The other major reason for the party finding itself in a mess is that it has deliberately chosen to ignore "Hindus" completely. May be it has been encouraged to do so because there really is no pan-India "Hindu" identity that prevails over the more immediate identities of caste, language and region. Experience has shown that Hindus can easily be divided along innumerable dimensions that cancel each other out electorally.

That is why from the ruins of the Congress have emerged only small "Hindu" parties identifying with and promoting the cause of tiny and somewhat homogeneous blocks of Hindus like Yadavs, dalits, Telegus, Maharashtrians, Assamese etc. There is only one party that speaks of and for all Hindus, 80% of India's population, across the whole of India rather than along fragmented dimensions. This is the only party that, as of now, poses a threat to the Congress; indeed it is its only competitor.

Why have so many small "Hindu" parties come up at the expense of the Congress? The party has clearly failed to meet the aspirations of the Hindus and protect their interests. So, Hindus are increasingly gravitating towards small parties that promise to look after the interests of specific caste and classes or towards the BJP that talks of protecting them as a whole. The Congress can do business with all these parties to form some sort of a government at the centre but cannot do so with the BJP which is the only party that can challenge it nationally at present.

Therefore, the Congress has embarked upon a disastrous policy to remain in the reckoning. Its strategy has two pillars. The first is to ensure that Muslims, who cannot be electorally fragmented like Hindus, continue to view the Congress as their only real friend and vote for it. The second is to ensure that fragmented Hindu voters do not de-fragment towards the BJP. That is why the Congress has to relentlessly try and prove that being pro-Hindu is the same as being anti-Muslim.

As part of its Muslim strategy, the Congress has to ignore even the most provocative and disturbing of developments related to the Muslim community and con the nation into believing that all is well, even when there is disturbing evidence to show that it is not. That is why POTA is removed and the nation is told for five years that existing laws are sufficient to deal with terrorism and that terrorism has no religion, even when innocent people continue to die in terror attacks. That is why there are no convictions of any terrorists who know that they can easily get away after killing innocent people. That is why the Prime Minister says that minorities have a first right on the resources of this nation. That is why there is immediate capitulation to unreasonable demands made by fundamentalists. That is why the creeping Talibanisation of Muslim society is ignored.

In pursuance of the second leg of its strategy, Hindu frustration with this minority-attracting-cum-majority-marginalising strategy is countered not by doing anything for Hindus but by making them feel that anyone speaking for them as a whole is communal and divisive. And that he is actually using that call not for Hindus but against innocent Muslims and, occasionally, Christians. The media play a huge role in propagating and perpetuating this negative strategy which sometimes pays political dividends but more often than not backfires very badly.

It may be recalled that just before the Gujarat elections, an unprecedented media frenzy was unleashed against Narendra Modi. The Delhi based SWOT analysts of the Congress manifestly had even got a Tehelka sting done to prove that Narendra Modi was personally responsible for the 2002 Gujarat riots. Then itself I had warned that it would backfire because it was clear that the Congress was completely out of touch with the reality on ground. It was that very disconnect that prompted Sonia Gandhi to make the most communal statement in the whole election campaign when she called Modi a "maut ka saudagar" (merchant of death).

The general idea, as any child could understand, was to ensure that all Muslims would vote for the Congress and that a sufficiently large number of Hindus would turn to the Congress not because they were for the party but because they would be psyched into hating Modi and voting against him. In the event, Tehelka unwittingly succeeded only in killing the conspiracy theory that the train was set on fire in Godhra by Modi's men as part of pre-planned strategy to incite the subsequent riots, and Sonia Gandhi helped Modi romp home to an unprecedented victory.

Remember the Malegaon blasts? After Sadhvi Pragya Thakur and Lt Col Shrikant Prasad Purohit were arrested for that one blast, the media went bonkers about the danger that India faced from "Hindu terror". Thrown away were earlier chants that terror had no religion; for over a month Indians were told that the real danger that India faced was from "Hindu terror" whose roots lay in the BJP. Forgotten completely was Islamic terrorism - the proxy war that Pakistan has launched against India - that the nation had been facing for years. That one blast was all that was needed for Team Congress to discover dangerous "Hindu terror" and proclaim that Sadhvi Pragya was India's Osama Bin Laden and the BJP and the Sangh Parivar its Al Qaida!

The terror attack on Mumbai on November 26, 2008, jolted everyone rudely back to reality. There was no longer any place for the Congress to hide; "Hindu terror" vanished as dramatically as it had appeared. POTA came back within days in the form of a modified UAPA and the government had no choice but to start making empty threatening noises of war to assuage the anger of a people they had been trying to lead up the wrong terror path treacherously. Five years of shouting that a stringent law was not needed to deal with terror, only to get Muslim votes, was forgotten in a flash after the realisation dawned that the bitter truth could no longer be hidden.

Soon enough, one incident in Mangalore in which some fringe Hindu elements beat up a few girls and boys drinking in a pub was the next flimsy excuse that the Congress and the media picked to re-start its "Hate BJP" campaign and make people forget Mumbai 26/11. This time it was Tehelka again, through it reporter Nisha Susan, that launched the famous Pink Chaddi Campaign against the moral policing of the Sangh Parivar. Once again, the Congress targeted the Hindu vote through a saturated negative media campaign. No one bothered to find out what the real situation was in the city and the state and almost no one reported that there was an underlying anger at boys of one community mixing with girls of other communities while girls of their own community were strictly denied that freedom.

The Varun Gandhi episode is the latest incident in this series that the Congress has used to get the Hindu vote solely by highlighting the wrong that the BJP has done, not the right that the Congress has. There is no doubt that even the words that Varun Gandhi has himself admitted to using are unacceptable and that he needs to apologise to the country. But, as always, the media has again got into that shrill mode and is sparing no effort whatsoever to influence Hindus to vote against the BJP, by psyching them into believing that by voting for the BJP, they will be voting for only communal hatred and divide.

As always, no one wants to even mention that Varun Gandhi has not spoken in a vacuum. No one wants to acknowledge that there probably are serious communal fissures in Pilibhit that need to be addressed. No one want to even whisper that Muslims are at least partly responsible for creating the communal divide that has got the young, educated and aware Gandhi agitated enough to react, though in a manner that needs to be condemned roundly.

The "secular" brigade thinks it has got a timely winner of an issue that it can milk to death electorally. Varun Gandhi, it believes, has given it just the stick it needed beat the BJP with. It has not struck anyone that though some people in the metros and in the blogosphere are buying that line, there just might be many more out there whose fears and apprehensions about aggressive Muslim communalism might actually be re-kindled sufficiently enough to get them to the voting booth to say so.

The experience of Gujarat has been totally forgotten by Team Congress; no one has his ear to the ground. That is why, thanks to a disconnected and hypocritical media, this really young Gandhi who is fighting his first election at the age of 29, has become the star of this election, hate him for spewing poison or love him for speaking the truth. Nobody knows how this is going to impact the electoral outcome.

Notwithstanding what happens in these elections, the question that the Congress really needs to ask itself is whether its two-pronged strategy is going to help the dying party revive itself. Over the years, it has paid a very heavy price for taking India's Hindus for granted. Wherever and whenever they have got a chance, Hindus have deserted the party in favour of even rag-tag outfits that promise to look after their interests. Yet, the Congress has not realised its folly. It may sleep with all small and seemingly non-threatening, non-BJP outfits that are taking away its voters, just to remain in power, but that is not going to make it any stronger. It may unleash a negative campaign against the seemingly threatening BJP to get negative Hindu votes, but that is not going to help it get or retain many over the long run either.

Sometimes it appears that the Congress party has forgotten that there is an India beyond Lutyen's Delhi and outside of TV studios. That is probably why it has not realised that by continuing to follow the strategy that it has till now, not only is it not only not going to stem its slide but it faces a real long-term risk of being eliminated from the political landscape altogether.
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Readers may also read:
1. Tehelka unearths a Prime Minister
2. Hindu terror at last; thank God!
3. India's Osama and Al Qaida found: banish them!
4. Mumba11/26: wake up to Islamic terror, this is just the beginning
5. Valentine's Day: it's chaddi vs langot!
6. The Varun sting: who is not playing the communal card?