No Country for Old Men

It certainly is looking like that for John McCain. RCP is averaging a 6 point lead for Bambi for like the 6th week in a row. But polls are polls, not elections. We'll see the election on Tuesday.

On the look of it, everything is a dead heat. The GOP base is strong as ever (forget the pundits, I'm talking of those trailer families in the mid-west). The Dems too have rallied behind Bambi.

Morpheus and Neo even appeared together couple of days back. For every Hannity there is an Olbermann in the media.

But if there is one thing that Bambi has and McPalin doesn't, it's the Awakening. Yes, the white elephant in the room is starting to move. Race was always a big factor in 2008. And while everyone was concerned about the "hard-working working class white Amercians", no one wanted to talk about the disillusioned, not-working-because-unemployed Americans. Now, who'd expect a democratic infidel like the black man to even think of a taking a political revenge at the ballot box? Isn't that how the white guy is expected to respond?

Well, apparently not. On Tuesday one country will become "No Country for Old Men, Old Thoughts, Old Beliefs, Old Ways". And hopefully this will reverberate across the world.

PS: Ya'll know Posh Spice....guess what's Sarah Palin? .........................Bible Spice!

Geek Squad and the Half Blooded Leaders

Its not that these guys are not likeable.


They are intelligent. Articulate. Well informed. Espouse a ideology, not a dynasty. Always work as a team, atleast visibly. Young, comparatively. Never been indicted.


On any day, they would be everyone's choice for political office.



Its sad to see what these guys are upto, though. All through Mr. Singh's tenure, the Left has behaved as the proverbial remote control. Power without Accountability - the heady mix that triggered the collapse of the beacon of communism almost two decades ago - is tormenting the Indian polity today.


Thrusted to the Lok Sabha in unexpectedly large numbers in 2004, the Left, instead of expending the 'political capital' by constructively contributing to the nation, is today belying the apparent maturity in its ranks by choosing to act as a barking dog and nothing more.


The brouhaha created by Karat and Co. over the nuclear deal is a case in point. I am not saying that they don't have a point. They do. The geek-squad(to borrow a term from capitalist America) always has a point. Taking the 123 bait may not be worth the risk. For 60 years, India has managed to speak its own voice. We did squeak non-alignment, but our actions were clearer than words. It was always From Russia With Love.


Keeping Vodka as the nation's first drink had its advantages(although, ideally, we should have stopped at vodka and not imported all that bureaucracy). We were safe from both Uncles Sam and Mao. It helped that the Soviet Union was communist. That way we couldn't be accused of creating a race or religion based brotherhood.


Not to digress, but yes, Russia, SAARC and the Commonwealth kept India fairly busy. Pakistan too helped, chipping in with a war here and there. And throughout, India had to ask NOBODY before making its own decision on stuff. And that kept our big-fat nation fairly safe. Either people didn't know whose side we were on or they just assumed that we we on their side.


Which brings me back to the point of this post. I mostly agree with the Left's concerns on the implications (read obligations) this 123 agreement will carry with it. Yes, America is freaking awesome. Its like us - democratic and likes software. Its got Harley Davidson, Halle Berry and Homer Simpson. It has Google and Lockheed Martin. It also has Pepsi and NASA. America is America. It also produced Bush and gave him two lives. There is no reason it couldn't do the same again.


So yes, Karat and Co. are right. It helps that the little red book they carry says 'Hate America for the heck of it'. The 123 deal may not be in India's best interests. Not in this time and age. Not with Dr. Huntington keeping the score in the ongoing clash of civilizations.


But alas, are they, Karat and Co, going to do anything about it? NO. Suave Sitaram has entered the field. Now, it'll turn into a fight over the English literature in the 123 agreement.

Unfortunately, the Left's behaviour cannot be characterized as anything but irresponsible and convoluted and spans sheer tokenism. They are looking like a bunch of morons, just like the MPs from Samajwadi Party who opposed the deal for the heck of it. I don't expect the SP to understand geopolitics, but surely the Left must.


Like every other protest, this is nothing more than a hogwash. They won't let Madam leave office, for the fear that there is a Modi lurking to get his hands on India that is (Akhand)Bharat.
But they will keep up the noise, making people wonder what its all about when it doesn't matter.


Karat must be a happy man. He knows that until Madam calls his bluff, he can pester Dr. Singh. And when she does, he'll call Sita. No one in India enjoys so much power behind the scenes as does Karat. Its a shame that he is using it to cry wolf than to fight it.

IBN does a retake!

Surprise!

In what is being touted as a 'rejoinder' to Ms. Ghose's rather patronizing conclusions in her published article a couple of days back, IBN has published this write-up by one Mr. Omair Ahmad. It is an interesting read and in short Mr. Ahmad crunches a few numbers to conclude that after all India's prisons are NOT full of muslims.

I applaud IBNs decision to publish this because between playing the much romaticized pseudo-secular, inclusive observer or the quintessential devil's advocate, jounalists, especially in these times when political correctness seems to be the end of imagination, fail to do the basic thing - which is not to pander to sentimentality but to look at information objectively and provide the reader/viewer the data he/she needs to draw conclusions around what has been presented.

In our quest to apologise to history and to appear as be making things right we must not run overboard. The Hindu majority in India happens to be fact. Just as the christian majority of the west of the muslim majority of the middle-east. But somehow, Indians, for far too long, have chosen to be rather parochial - always looking 'down' to the muslims and chirstians and 'displaying' Mother India's benovelance by spreading the arms out to 'lift' them from the obscurity of a non-Hindu Indian life.

And this has not always worked. For every Shah Bano, there is a Godhra and for every Mandal there will be an Ayodhya. The government has always looked at building walls around the minority communities(not just religious minority, but even regional minorities) in India either by legislation or by charity(doling out crores of rupees in fancy 'packages'). The is no genuine effort to address the issues faced by minorites by the fact of their being under-represented in the social structure. Its always been symbolic. The Hindus are here. We will listen to you, not because you are an Indian, but because our ancestors spent their lives killing yours.

The media, with its reach and influence, has unfortunately succumbed to this craze. TV Channels and newspapers want to appear non-partisan than to epouse the truth.

While getting carried away by political correctness may seem fashionable, Indians must realize that our job is as much to pass on to our next generation an India that is united and strong as it is to fix problems of the past, if not more. And that will happen only if the votebanks of today - political, economic and social are dismantled and no new ones are erected.

PS: Wonder if IBN sneaked in some correctness by getting a Muslim to refute a Hindu's delusions....

Goshed!

More pesudo-intellectual BS from Ms. Ghose. 

Some quotable quotes from her musings(Hindustan Times actually published it)

1. Soon India's jails will be choc-a-block with Muslims.

2. How can justice can be thoroughly done through the mountains of documentation, the sheer bulk of facts and contradictions, the long delayed trial and lapses in human memory that must have come faced poor Justice PD Kode

3. Indian civil society turned its back on haneef, instead vilifying the prime minister when he made the mistake of confessing he had had a sleepless night about Haneef's parents.

Now I am no right winger or a left winger. And no Rhodes Scholar like Ms. Ghose. But hey, I don't need to be one to call this what it actually is.

India's prisons choc-a-bloc with Muslims. Full marks for creativity. I think she should have gone ahead and thought of what the blood-sucking Hindu's, with the proverbial 'immune from prosecution' swagger would name the prisons(probably Lahore, Peshawar, Rawalpindi, Karachi....)

And thank goodness we have Ms. Ghose to remind us of a the serious medical situation of Mr. Kode losing memory. What's next? Lets overturn Nanavati vs. Maharashtra

and bring in the jurors. That way it will be a collective memory loss, and that would sell well.

But I can't disagree about Mr. Singh's vilification. I thought Beard Blue blew it too. I mean, he's is the freaking Prime Minister of India, and he spoke like cry-baby. An Indian citizen is being held for some ridiculuos reason and all he's got to say is 'Oh I feel sorry for his parents'. Stand up and be counted. Use the damn phone. Call people. I think you have people in your office who do that for you. DO something. And talk about that. Not about your sleepless night. So, I do agree with you Ms. Ghose.

We have problems. I agree. Justice was delayed. And as long as there are lawyers, there will always be the cries of justice being denied. 14 years is a long time for anyone. For Shaikh. For Khairulla. For Qureshi. For Memon. And for everyone who knew someone who died that day. 

But the intention was not to fill India's prisons with Muslims. Shaikh was treated innocent until proven guilty. So were most of them until Mr. Kode found reasons under law to call them criminals. And they can still get to the Supreme Court. And just as in the Parliament attack case, justice could rule in their favour this time. 

I am with you on what has been done with the Srikrishna Commission Report. But its not because the Hindu's of India that the Report has not been actioned upon by the people in power. It is because the of the people in power who want to keep the Memon's coming. Give unto us a Memon and we will give you more Shah Bano's. Its the duplicity, not the conspiracy at play here.

The conspiracy of silence was when Awasi called himself a muslim first, a MLA next and attacked Taslima - and no one said a word. 

Because, as long as there are Awasis and Memons, there will be people who will conspire to be silent in the hope that they can offer more Shah Bano's and forget about the Srikrishnas.