There are always a dozen ways to look at things. Some of those ways lead to change that is beneficial to larger people and some to inaction and continued benefit of few. The ongoing project or rather ghastly movement to cut as many trees as possible, to clear as much forest land as possible remains one such thing which is being looked at and discussed in very many ways. But from most discussions, one key angle and detail is getting missed out or perhaps overlooked by the very people who surely have a stake in status quo. The political movement that most loudly claims Hindu reverence for nature has itself overseen or defended many of these projects.
As per the Indian government, India is teeming with infiltrators (ghuspaithi). These illegal people have entered across India in Bihar, Jharkhand, Bengal, Kerala and so on. And they are in large numbers. They, as per the Home Minister, the Prime Minister and other important people in the Indian government, come from Bangladesh, Pakistan and elsewhere. They are, according to the Indian government again, a threat to India. Most of the problems that India faces today are because of them. I'm using the Indian government here to refer to statements or information shared by Prime Minister Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and other important people part of the Indian Government. After all, if the Prime Minister and Home Minister's word isn't a word from the nation itself, then whose word would be said as a word from the nation?
While AAP lost to BJP, Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia were also defeated in their respective constituencies
Many, especially people in Delhi, saw this coming. In a way, it is good. Or as someone mentioned, it was inevitable. Just like how it was important to defeat UPA at the height of their powers and ego trip in 2014, equally, it had become important and necessary to defeat the politics of Arvind Kejriwal. He was thinking that a mini-version of BJP's politics was the strategy to go by. He repeatedly projected himself as the better version of BJP's divisive politics – as if he could hate Muslims but continue to also provide free public services. At every step of the way in recent times, he projected himself as more religious and narrowminded than the BJP. He even avoided supporting his own Muslim legislator and rallied against admitting children of migrants in schools. Forget about his actions concerning Shaheen Bagh and CAA. And of course, he had grown hubris that he could not be defeated in Delhi and had gotten too comfortable which politicians should never be made to feel for the public's own good.
I'm completely in with Modi's plan of largely discounting 30 deaths in Kumbh or 1000 plus deaths under railway 'accidents' in his tenure. Modi knows all too well, more than any of us could ever grasp it, that the population of India is its largest problem. And it needs to be controlled. And since people are not taking care of it by themselves, he has taken it upon himself to prevent it by any and all means. Modi is a pakka Gujarati who knows his economics rather too well. He understands how to maximize capital. Mr Modi comprehends unlike too many of us that marriage and taking care of a wife is not just mentally exhausting but makes little sense economically as well; wife and kids are accountabilities that end up creating large holes in one's pockets. That is why he stranded his wife before it made him a pauper.
Or How Hindusim Came Into Being; Brief History Of Hindu Religion For Zoomers-n-Boomers Who Refuse To Pick Books
Ayodhya Temple As Of Today. Courtesy: Newslaundry.com
I was just on a call with my distant neighbour who after the regular round of questions asked me if I had received the Ram-Mandir-Rice (akshata). For those who haven’t and don’t know about what’s going on, people associated with BJP-RSS have been going door-to-door and distributing some posters related to the new temple in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh along with some colourful uncooked-unbroken-rice in tiny plastic pack (hardly 20 gram).
Geelani addressing a rally in Sopore 2012. In Kashmir, even the tallest political leaders have eventually fallen from grace, after compromising on the demand for autonomy. Geelani’s unflinching stance won him a steady mass following across the region, across generations.
Image and caption courtesy of Caravan Magazine
You have to read stories from Kashmir. We are every day sold this lie by our media and govt that Kashmir is peaceful, its people are happy but not once do we let them speak on camera and voice their opinions. We recently snatched their statehood from them, we divided their state into three parts, we jailed their political leaders and their journalists for no particular crime of theirs. We jailed them simply on the assumption that they might commit crimes. This was imperialism, the kind we fought against when the British were the imperialist forces. And I say we because we voted this govt to power, it's we who find exalted meaning in a piece of cloth, more meaning than lives of thousands of humans we are going to affect, we find collective meaning in a piece of land than people living on it for generations, even long before this piece of land got its present name and form.
We have never let these people speak out and inform us of what they want. Each time they sneak somehow and find a way to speak out, we rush with our pellet guns, army tanks, gunmen and barbed wires to silence them. Then our media overwhelms us with boys throwing stones. But they don't show who they are throwing stones at. It is at gunmen who they see as aliens on their lands.
It is six months since the genome sequence of SARS-CoV-2 was published by Chinese scientists and was available to the world. What has India done since that January should find no excuse in the otherwise legitimate accusation that China did not inform about the novel virus to the world in time or it kept WHO in dark. It is true that China erred and it is also true that there are reasons to scrutinize WHO. But what have we done since it indeed released the information about the virus? For instance, while some countries like Taiwan, South Korea, Japan had cases of probable infection long before China released the vital information, India registered its first case only in late January, long after China had published genome sequence of the virus and WHO had informed the world about such an outbreak. So unlike those countries, and they have it under control now and cases are breaking new records in India, we cannot blame the outbreak on Chinese malfeasance. Whatever situation we are in today is our own making. While this bit of truth is hard to digest, especially to a large population that has personally attached their egos with the present government, the refusal to acknowledge would move us into a further abyss, further down the rabbit hole.
Monsoons evaded Maharashtra in 1992. In a country where even today agriculture is largely dependent on rains, this naturally made people distraught then. In this helplessness, blankness, in this void came Maharashtra governor's appeal other rather a dictate. On a particular day at 11 am, people were to collectively pray. Authorities jumped in to enforce the governor's appeal. Directions were announced left, right and centre. And pray people did.
There are 6,653 cases of COVID-19 in India as of 9 April 11:45 PM. And this is despite India testing the least. And our government is broadcasting these comparative low numbers as some sort of success. Think of this. If India had not tested anyone at all then India would have had zero SARS-CoV-2 positive cases. And the gullible public would have bought even that as the success of their God Modi. People are yet to realise or do not want to indulge in a thought that goes against great leader's image how the 'low number of recorded cases across the country might be a result of the government's strict guidelines on who can be tested.' The number of cases in India right now is dreary low compared to the world at large but even these numbers are not being managed respectfully. Doctors in India are facing a shortage of PPEs so much so that according to a Reuters report, PPE shortages are forcing some doctors to use raincoats and motorbike helmets. If doctors are facing this, it is not hard to think the kind of risk hospital staff, ambulance drivers and others in the health sector are up against. Least said about the number of beds and doctor to people ratio the better.
The plant that we so diligently watered and cared for has grown into a big banyan; full of flowers and fruits. Own it now.
53 people have lost their lives in the Delhi riots. You have heard this already. But do you see the problem here? Riot? Was it really a riot? Is it a riot if the state machinery and police take sides; forget keeping silent while mobs went on a rampage but Delhi police took stones in their own hands and threw them at the other side, they directed and aided one side of the mob (as if there was another side anyway), they climbed and destroyed CCTV cameras. Yes, police did all this. It’s all on record. There are videos after videos that prove all this. How then can we call it a riot? It was a pogrom. As Rana Ayyub called, state-sponsored anti-Muslim pogrom. Let’s call it what it was. Now that we have settled on the calling business, let’s get on to our language.
While AAP lost to BJP, Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia were also defeated in their respective constituencies
Ayodhya Temple As Of Today. Courtesy: Newslaundry.com
Geelani addressing a rally in Sopore 2012. In Kashmir, even the tallest political leaders have eventually fallen from grace, after compromising on the demand for autonomy. Geelani’s unflinching stance won him a steady mass following across the region, across generations.
Image and caption courtesy of Caravan Magazine
