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?

Infiltrators to become majority in Jharkhand in 25–30 years if unchecked: Amit Shah He also criticised the state government for “vote bank” politics and vowed that if the BJP comes to power, it would chase “each” illegal immigrant out of the state.

'Will make Bihar ghuspaithiya mukt': Amit Shah says infiltrators will be deported within 5 years from Seemanchal Amit Shah questioned whether the infiltrators should be removed from the voters' list or not, and asserted that they would have to return to their countries and would have no place in Seemanchal.

Amit Shah directs officials to identify 100 'infiltrators' in every State and deport them The Union Home Minister asked intelligence officials to continue with the targeted crackdown even if the neighbouring countries do not accept the undocumented migrants.

These are just samples. If you dig more, you will find an even larger number of intruders, in thousands and lakhs, roaming in India currently. People in the Indian government know the number; they also know in what states they exist. People in the national media also know about these intruders. All of this makes you wonder, how did these intruders get into India? Who facilitated their entrance? While such a question gets difficult to answer since each intruder might have followed a different path and agent to get in, the other question becomes important. Whose job is to guard our borders? Whose job is to ensure intruders don't intrude on our borders? It is the job of the Indian Army and the Home Ministry, headed by Amit Shah himself. And these repeated statements from the Home Minister reveal a startling reality. People guarding our borders, that is, the Indian armed forces, are no more following orders from the Home Ministry. They are on their own. It is they who are letting these intruders enter India. I'm not saying this thing. It is said, and inferred by the Indian government via the Prime Minister, Home Minister and even the national media.

So there are two things here. Either intruder after intruder is let in by the Indian army. Or these intruders are smarter than the Indian armed forces. These intruders who are illiterate, living on meagre incomes, going inside India to do daily wage labour are cleverer than the Indian armed forces. Essentially, Amit Shah, Modi and the entire machinery of RSS and BJP are saying that the Indian Army is incompetent. That they have failed India, that the Indian army has let in this huge influx of intruders. Given all these facts, does it make sense to even have these men holding guns at the borders? What are they drawing their salaries for? Why are we paying them if they are such failures at their jobs? What's there to take pride in these incompetent men who cannot stop poor intruders from entering our borders? And not one or two, but in such large numbers? And it has been more than ten years since the Modi government has had such reliable information about these intruders, but the Indian army has failed to find any of these enemies from other countries. Just how incompetent are our supposedly brave soldiers? I'm not raising these questions. India's Prime Minister Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah are raising these fingers on our armed forces. And so far, at least I'm not aware of any army commander or regiment clarifying anything on these statements. Meaning? These statements by the Indian government are right, and they agree they are losers who cannot protect our borders or, and I fear to suggest this, for these are the men who brought Ram to Ayodhya, they cannot be liars, for the whole Ram's story is about the truth, Amit Shah and Modi are not lying. Those who follow the message of Ram could never lie. Modi and Shah would never resort to lies. I cannot for once imagine believing such a thing. But then again, years of Congress propaganda have made it harder to disrespect the Indian armed forces. They are a professional force we have been told again and again. It is hard to believe they would let intruders into our borders or even that such a large number could intrude under their watch.

If people who brought Ram to Ayodhya are liars, then how come Maryadapurushottam Ram, whose entire life was a message of adhering to truth, blessed and decided to come to Ayodhya on their request? How did the great seers, learned minds and devotees of Prabhu Ram allow these liars who are so far from the principles of Ram's teachings to inaugurate his abode? Has the lord Ram corrupted himself over the years? Is lord Ram now one among the supporters and cheerleaders of rape and lying? No? Meaning Modi and Shah are not the liars? I can't. I respect Prabhu Ram too much to think of Modi and Shah, soldiers who gave us Ram in Ayodhya, to be liars. That spells the other statement, the one that the Shah and Modi have been repeating without any counterclaim from the army. The Indian army is indeed an incompetent pool of men with arms. Utterly shameful that Indians are paying for their upkeep and more using their hard-earned salaries via taxes.

#NarendraModi #RSS #BJP #Aliens #migrants #refugees #India #Army #hate #propaganda

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.

That said, it is concerning what replaces Kejriwal now and UPA then. But again, it also tells the options the public is provided. How they try to avoid the devil and how they eventually give up and choose an open devil rather than the masked monster who hides its claws.

Silver lining wise, Kejriwal is a shrewd politician, unlike Rahul and others. Despite this defeat, he in past has repeatedly shown he knows how to fight the BJP on their turf by twisting and turning the designs to suit him better. Now that he has lost his fiefdom, he has nothing more to lose or concentrate his focus on. BJP can no longer create problems in the capital and keep him engaged. Add to it, unlike the old Kejriwal, this one will have his men in the assembly and parliament who can speak and tomtom his message. If he is up to it, and in all likelihood he will be, he's going to be a hard and harsh thorn in BJP's path from here on.

Congratulations to all, we are in for good times. Politics in India is going to be a good show from now on.

P.S. It is a good time here to remember how the BJP using all sorts of powers and agencies including the courts, almost paralysed Kejriwal's government from working. At the start of his government, Kejriwal using ACB had initiated corruption investigations against Ambani and other heavyweights. Modi government to stop this, passed a fresh law pulling ACB from the control of the Delhi government. Delhi Police was already under Modi government so he was left with nothing to fight corruption and other misdoings. Later on, a new LG was appointed who would refuse to pass any bills and files Kejriwal signed including transfers of officials. Even door-to-door ration and government services were stopped. Kejriwal still found ways to work around these blockers. Then one by one his closest allies and later himself were arrested and kept behind bars. All the cases against his MLAs eventually fizzled out, and nothing could be proved in court but by the time cases could be finished and clean chit was given, his ministers would have spent years (two, three etc) in prison. While it is always hard to pinpoint why people unseat someone and crown another and many times there are always multiple reasons for how people vote, in Delhi's case, voters might just have gotten frustrated as well from this constant tussle. It's not like they could not see how Modi halted Kejriwal on each step he took.

#delhi #politics #arvindkejriwal #narendramodi #bjp #aap #elections

Mr Modi also knows whose life is more consequential and whose life is not worth too much, whose life contributes to the economy and whose not so much. Unlike leaders of the past, Modi is serious about eradicating poverty but to terminate poverty he first had to recognise the poor. Or more importantly, isolate the rich from the poor so his plans for them could be better targeted. Just like direct cash transfer and linking everything with Aadhaar, Vande Bharat trains were a step in the right direction. Rich now are driven to travel via these special trains on which the poor are not allowed. But he is smart, he didn't want to hurt their egos and lose their vote. So he did not openly say 'You are not allowed on these trains'; he simply priced their tickets such that they would never enter his Vande Bharats. And with it, his plan was in action. One by one trains started smashing into each other. There was technology to stop collisions - Kavach was present as Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnav mentioned in his now-viral reel. But Vaishnav is aware of when to switch it off to save power and contribute to Modi's larger goal of population control. Kavach for Vande Bharat trains is not given in the minister's hands. It is controlled directly via Mr Modi's able hands. And that is why, except for a minor scratch to the shiny mouth of Vande Bharat, they have never had to face any blow. Efficiency is in his blood. There is nothing that he does that is short of greatness.

Leaders of the past came with their baggage of family and were at best emotional fools. None of them cared about the population explosion leaving briefly the tenure of Indira Gandhi but she was more direct and people saw through her population control measures. Modi has learnt from her mistakes. Mr Modi does not believe in trumpeting his plans or successes. Narendra Modi is a silent doer. He believes more in actions than words. And if you pay attention, you will see what all he has achieved which he rarely talks about. If you are mourning over 30 deaths, know that India's population is more than 1,458,412,491 as of now. Modi knows best, what needs to be done, when to talk to the press, when not to. Mr Modi sets his own agenda and talks on his own terms.

It's just that, we are not capable of seeing his designs. Rest assured, we are in great hands.

#NarendraModi #satire #kumbhMela #UttarPradesh #religion #trains #deaths

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).

Akshata basically consists of uncooked un-broken pieces of rice which is mixed with turmeric. It is sometimes used to bless bride and groom during weddings. Akshata is also sprinkled during other auspicious ceremonies. When Akshata is offered to a deity, it is believed to be the finest offering that a devotee can make. Akshata is believed to be equal to offering clothes, jewelry, food, or any other offering. Akshata is usually thrown over the head of the devotees during pujas and during functions like marriage and other auspicious events. 

The akshata attract the subtle frequencies of five principal deity namely Shiv, Shakti, Shri Ram, Shri Krishna and Shri Ganesh. Akshata is the central point of puja plate. If the rice grains used for preparing Akshatas are broken then their capacity to attract the principles of higher deities is automatically reduced. When the akshtas are offered to a deity the energy of the deity is transferred in it and favourable vibrations are generated in akshatas.  — Hinduism StackExchange

There is a lot that’s wrong in the above description but since all this is a matter of faith, let’s go ahead with it. Or just ask any Hindu person around you what ‘Akshata’ is. If the above description is right then how come RSS-BJP members have akshata even before the inauguration of the temple?

Returning back to my phone call.

I answered in the affirmative. I was then told to add some more grains to this 20-gram ‘akshata’ and prepare some sweet dish out of this mixture and have it. I was also told to take two to three grains from the 20-gram packet and wrap them in a piece of paper after writing ‘Shri Ram’ thrice over it and to keep this paper in my cupboard/locker.

Where is all this coming from? Who tells them? And even if someone does, how come people believe in this nonsense?

I have seen so many religious celebrations in my life. Never once am I aware of ‘akshata’ being used as this. In fact, unlike what that description claims, ‘akshata’ from the floor is just swept away like any other dirt. Few do collect it separately. At my place, since we have a river in the vicinity, they throw this rice in the water the next morning. I don’t know what people in cities do.

***

Let’s talk about this new temple now, shall we?

The temple will be inaugurated on Jan 22, 2024. The temple is not complete yet. By most estimates it would take at least two more years for its completion. Why so much hurry then? There’s a general election this year. By all predictions, RSS-BJP is going to sweep that election. Temple inauguration and these foot soldiers going door-to-door is merely to ensure it.

There have been many instances of people close to RSS-BJP profiting from temple construction. For one such example, read this:

It’s a prime property of 890 sq meters, a piece of land where the grand Ram temple complex will soon come up. Until February this year, it belonged to a mahant, Devendra Prasadacharya. On February 20, one Deep Narayan bought the land — gata number 135 — from the mahant for Rs 20 lakh.

Narayan is the nephew of Rishikesh Upadhyaya, the Bharatiya Janata Party leader who is the mayor of Ayodhya. Land records accessed by Newslaundry show that three months later, on May 11, Narayan sold the property to the Ram Janmabhoomi Trust, set up by the Narendra Modi government to oversee the temple’s construction, for Rs 2.5 crore.   — Ayodhya: Whose Land Is It Anyway?

Forget questioning people in power over this loot, none in big media even bothered to report on this. I would be surprised if you wondered why.

I would not mention people, mostly poor, whose houses were demolished to make space for a grand home to lord Ram. By now I have completely understood how there is no value to a poor man’s life and livelihood. For instance, the government of Madhya Pradesh demolished the house of a Muslim person for spitting on a Hindu religious procession. He was jailed too. But in court it was found that no such incident had taken place. Police had made two people (police’s “witnesses” ) sign on blank papers. They denied seeing any such spitting incident in court. But did any of us ask what of that poor man’s demolished house now? No. Again, the media didn’t see it worth covering. It would puncture the popular narrative now, won’t it?

The domed structure was a 464-year-old mosque believed to have been constructed by or at the instruction of the Mughal emperor Babur. Babri Masjid, the lone structure of significance to Muslims in the area, stood surrounded by holy buildings built by Hindus later — Manas Bhawan, Sita Rasoi and Ram Katha Kunj Sagar. The mosque had existed for centuries and Muslims offered namaz there. Soon after independence, in December 1949, Hindus discreetly installed an idol of the deity Ram Lalla under the central dome, persisting with their claim that the plot on which Babri Masjid stood was the birthplace of the Hindu god Rama.

The conundrum had begun. Who should get the land title, Hindus or Muslims? The case travelled for years through the judicial labyrinth until finally, on November 9 this year, the Supreme Court gave away the title to Hindus.

It took the five judges who decided the case to travel back in time to 300 BC to explain why the land “probably” belonged to Hindus. The court categorically said towards the beginning of its 1,045-page judgement: “The court does not decide title on the basis of faith or belief but on the basis of evidence…The law must stand apart from political contestations over history, ideology and religion.’’ Yet, it ended up doing just that. It went on to rule that Hindus had a stronger claim to the title because of their belief.  — Ayodhya verdict: A conundrum of fact, fiction and faith

The idol of Ram was placed inside the mosque in 1949 — which VHP and Sangh claimed had miraculously appeared that night; but it is not this idol that the new temple will have. The Temple trust had arranged a fashion show of probable idols and chose one from the lot (Voting on Lord Ram Lalla’s idol today, temple trust to select best among three designs). Turns out, the new temple trust does not believe in miracles. Some scientific temperament there. Good for them.

Away from all this noise, I keep wondering, what if there was no mosque in Ayodhya, how would they then choose Ram’s place of birth? Before the British started spreading the rumour of the mosque being that place, so many temples to Ram in Ayodhya claimed that theirs was the spot at which their lord was born. In this context, it is a good time to rewind and remember how Hinduism as a religion was born under British rule as a reaction to Islam. What we today refer to as Hinduism was historically called or known as Brahmanvaad/Brahmanism/vedic-brahmanism etc. No one identified as Hindu before the British started holding provincial elections or census. How do you for instance digest the fact that the Vedas, the books that Hindus use to bolster their claim to state how old their religion is, does not mention Ram or for that matter any god that is worshiped today?

While temples are highly regarded today in Hinduism, our own old religious books disrespect them and write of them in poor light. Vishnu Smriti for instance “says that Vedic recitation should not be carried out ‘in a temple, in a cemetery, at a crossroads, or on a road.’ Placing a temple next to a cemetery is telling. Ritual specialists associated with temples were called devalaka. They were despised by the authors of Dharmashastras. The devalaka is listed among those who should not be invited to an ancestral offering (shraddha), Manu listing them between physicians and butchers.”

From my own limited reading, I have understood this much: Before Aryans migrated to what we today refer to as India, there were already people here. Harappans for one example. And they had their own beliefs and gods (don’t know how they viewed them and what they called them). For instance, Nataraja (who we today view as a form of Shiva) is imported from Harappans. Vedas were written by Aryans. These were the books that informed us about Brahman and their importance. Basically, those who wrote these books were Brahmans and they were superior in all kinds, had all rights and could not receive any punishment as per these books. They were, as per these books, mediators between god and people. Which god? The ones mentioned in the books they had written. They tried to enrol indigenous people into their religion but could not find great success. Another point to note here is how all these Vedic rituals involved large-scale offerings to gods which were impossible for common folk to undertake. All rituals required Brahman's help in invoking gods. These gods could not be prayed to on your own like we are familiar today. Side note: Vedas and early books mention meat eating including beef. In fact, brahmans themselves were extreme beef eaters. I’m not saying it, Ambedkar did. He wrote a detailed paper on this bit of history using Vedas and other scriptures. So in essence, it is not even Ambedkar saying Hindus were beef-eaters but Hindu books themselves. But then the question arises, why did we abandon beef-eating? The answer in all likelihood lies in Buddhism. There was a time when Buddhism and Jainism spread far and wide in India. People started enrolling in hordes. Many kingdoms in the north adopted Buddhism and in the south, they embraced Jainism. This left Brahmans staring at an existential crisis. Their whole thesis relied on them being superior to others in the caste pyramid but what would happen when no one remained under the bottom part of the pyramid? And so began the writing of Puranas and the invention of the very many gods. While some were invented from thin air, many were local gods prayed to by non-aryan locals who were given Vedic makeovers. And so gradually vedic gods whom local people refused to adopt were abandoned in favor of Puranic gods. It is these gods that we continue to pray today. People hated large rituals and yagnyaas where mass slaughter of animals used to take place and in reaction were flocking to Buddhism. To counter this, it seems Brahmans themselves abandoned eating beef. And went a step further by creating stories of bovine’s divinity. What was once the food of Brahman was now converted into a divine entity. It was a method employed to survive. And temples which were once decried bad were now embraced wholeheartedly because by now Buddhists had started to build large structures of their own.

This is the only explanation that answers why Hindus have so many gods, how two people who pray to two separate gods and who on varied occasions are even unaware of each other's gods could still claim to be part of a single religious entity.

This is also why caste is always defended in myriad ways since it is at the heart of the Hindu religion’s existence. Only for the sake of caste was this religion created or put more sordidly, to protect the superior position of Brahmans or upper caste over everyone else.

***

The four shankaracharyas have said that they will not attend the inauguration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya on January 22.

The shankaracharyas head the four Hindu mathas (monasteries) — in Dwarka (Gujarat), Joshimath (Uttarakhand), Puri (Odisha), and Sringeri (Karnataka) — that are believed to have been founded by the eighth-century religious scholar and philosopher Adi Shankara.

(Adi Shankara is one of the most important figures in Hinduism)

‘Can’t go against our Dharma Shastra’: Shankaracharyas to not attend Ram temple inauguration — ‘We cannot remain silent now and must say that it is a bad idea to inaugurate an incomplete temple and install the idol of the god there’

“The temple belongs to the Ramanand sect, and not to the Sanyasis, not to Shaiva or Shakta.” —  Champat Rai, general secretary of Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust

So does Ram belong to Hinduism? Does Shankaracharyas belong to Hinduism? Is the answer to both of these questions the same? Then, what is Champat Rai saying above? Why is he hinting that this new temple does not belong to all Hindus? If he is out-of-line (that seems to be the only argument which could keep both Ram and Shankaracharya in Hinduism) then why have Hindus not been outraged, why have they not asked for Champat Rai’s removal? It’s not like Hindus are a tolerant lot — that’s not the image Modi-years have presented. Didn’t the same lot that took down Babri Masjid murder the original pujari of Ramjanmbhoomi Temple who destroyed VHP, RSS, and Advani’s arguments and condemned the Rath Yatra which killed thousands?

Let me repeat myself. It has now become impossible to project Hindus as peaceful lot. Or Hinduism as the religion of peace, harmony or love. Modi years have ensured that much. Modi years have done to Hinduism what ISIS/Taliban did to Islam. Mind you, Muslims could wash off taints of Taliban/ISIS from them but how will Hindus wash off RSS and Modi who are defended and bolstered by ordinary masses day in and day out. Unlike Taliban, RSS-BJP-Modi are not fringes. They are as mainstream as anything could be. Voted twice. The first vote was despite Gujarat 2002 and Babri Masjid demolition or because of these very facts. And so this is our reality now. We have to live with it. There is no running away from this taint anymore.

***

If you have reached here, do consider reading the below piece.

Shining example: What Golden Temple can teach Hindutva warriors using Ayodhya to whip up hatred: The shrine in Amritsar offers a lesson in how opposing narratives can coexist in harmony.

#Politics #Religion #Hinduism #NarendraModi #India

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. Would you not object to gunmen if they were to invite themselves into your house and order their wills on you? Occasionally, also violate the bodies of people you know and love? Or make them disappear. I guess you will object to these excesses and violence. I guess you will want no such gunmen in your house. I will then call you a separatist because you're not playing along with my whims. That's what we are doing with Kashmiris. We think we are cultured, more sophisticated and they are savages who need to be cultured just like the British did with their colonies. But the truth of the matter is, Kashmiris are better than us. They fare better on most human indexes, even better than the national average and our most well to do states (or thought to be well to do's). Jammu and Kashmir ranked third out of 22 States in terms of life expectancy. Kerala is at the top and UP at the bottom. It is eighth in terms of poverty rate, 10th in terms of infant mortality rate. The Human Development Index is a collective index of life expectancy, education, and per capita income indicators. Jammu and Kashmir’s Human Development Index stands at 0.68, higher than even States like Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat. Indians are sold this lie that Kashmir is so bad and underdeveloped that its people need saving by New Delhi which is pure deceit to morph and cover the colonist thought and Hindu Nationalist bigotry. Moreover, if Indians looked at Kashmir and probably learnt few things, and emulated them in their states, maybe their lives will turn better.

Some history from New York Times

At the time of the partition, the British agreed to divide their former colony into two countries: Pakistan, with a Muslim majority, and India, with a Hindu majority. Both nations covet Kashmir, which is Muslim majority, and occupy portions of it with military forces. For decades, an uneasy stalemate has prevailed, broken by occasional military incursions, terrorist attacks and police crackdowns. But on Monday, the Indian government decided to permanently incorporate the territory it controls into the rest of India. The administration of Prime Minister Narendra Modi revoked Article 370 of the Indian constitution, a 70-year-old provision that had given autonomy to the state of Jammu and Kashmir, which includes the Hindu-majority area of Jammu and the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley. The government also introduced a bill to strip the region of statehood and divide it into two parts, both under direct control of the central government. Article 370 was added to the Indian constitution shortly after the partition of British India to give autonomy to the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir. Article 370 says that it can only be abrogated with the consent of the legislative body that drafted the state constitution. That body dissolved itself in 1957, and India's Supreme Court ruled last year that Article 370 is therefore a permanent part of the constitution.

Meaning, Indian government not just walked over a constitutional promise but also went against the wisdom of the highest court of the land. How is that not imperialistic?

Reuters image

Sedition cases were filed against most of our freedom fighters by the then govt of Great Britain since our freedom fighters wanted to overthrow the empire's hold over the subcontinent. All of them were separatists in their own right since they wanted to cut and declare themselves independent from the British crown. They were all dissenters who did not agree with the version of state and boundary of what was then the British empire. Syed Ali Shah Geelani, who died on September 1st, was our separatist leader. He was Kashmir's tallest pro-freedom leader. He did not agree with New Delhi's version of the truth. He did not believe in our idea of a nation. And he dissented. For many years, he even participated in our democracy. He was elected as an MLA for three terms by Kashmiris which means there were enough Indian citizens who believed in his version of the truth. SAS Geelani ‘was elected again in the 1987 assembly election in Kashmir, which the Indian government was accused of rigging and which triggered an armed militancy in the region. As the militancy grew, Geelani resigned his seat, in 1989. He became opposed to any participation in Indian democracy, believing it to be a sham—a stand he maintained until his death.’ Geelani was 18 when the partition took place. In the early days of the republic, he was an admirer of the secular Indian republic. His views changed drastically over the years to writing 'India Go Back' on his wall in recent years. It isn't just Geelani who revolted against New Delhi's version, it is so many Indian citizens who stood by him that disagreed with the ways and beliefs of New Delhi. He was right or wrong, we can have our opinions but in the end, it was his version of the truth and he fought as long as he lived for his truth, and so many Kashmiris rallied behind him. And what did he desire? Geelani all his life advocated for the Kashmiri peoples’ right to self-determination; his personal choice being Pakistan in whose flag his body was wrapped as per his last wishes. “My wish would be to merge with Pakistan but if people Kashmir choose Independent Kashmir, I would be happy. But if people choose India, I would prefer to leave Kashmir,” Shahid Tantray wrote in Caravan. SAS Geelani snubbed leaders of both nations when it came to his stance for Kashmiri self-determination. He never compromised on that. He did not once take arms but for more than a decade now, we kept him confined to his house, we converted his house into a prison, we confined him to sparse movements and interactions using arms, army tanks, gunmen and barbed wires. On the night of his death, 'seven hundred personnel had been deployed to only 500 square meters in Hyderpora, around Geelani’s home.' His relatives weren't allowed to his house, to see him one last time, to pay their respects, journalists were not allowed to cover the sham that was his forced burial by New Delhi's gunmen. These relatives and journalists did not have guns on them, they were unarmed in contrast to the gunmen on New Delhi's payroll. “Meanwhile, angered at having been kept from Geelani’s funeral and with the imposed restrictions, protestors gathered in various areas in the city, such as in downtown Srinagar in the Nawa Bazaar area in old Srinagar. Some pelted stones. The security forces fired teargas shells and pellet guns at the protesting civilians. On the evening of 3 September, a teenager sustained pellet injuries across his face and body after security forces opened fire at protestors in downtown Srinagar.” Stones against teargas and pellet guns. And why are they picking stones? After what? Who is making them pick stones? What sort of desperation and frustration must it be that they pick stones knowing fully well that they are picking stones against a group of men with arms, arms they know they will fire, men with pellet guns they know have blinded their people in the past, guns that might now blind and mutilate them? Just pause and think.

A little after midnight on the intervening night of 1 and 2 September, security forces gathered locals at a graveyard in Hyderpora, a few minutes from Geelani’s home, to dig a grave for him. Geelani’s son Naseem said that the police forcefully buried Geelani here, against his final wishes. He said the police broke down the door of Geelani’s home and forced the family to hand over the body. The police later denied forcibly burying him. Image and caption courtesy of Caravan Magazine

We were least interested in dialogue, talks and democratic means. When and where it mattered most, we abandoned democratic means for colonist muscle and firepower. Omar Abdullah, former Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir and his father and former Union Minister Farooq Abdullah have consistently blamed Geelani for bloodshed and militancy in Kashmir, these two leaders have been voices of New Delhi in Jammu & Kashmir and yet recently when the time came, Indian govt even arrested those that supported New Delhi in thick and thin including these two leaders. This is true not just of Kashmir but also of Manipur and the north-east and red regions of India wherever people have disagreed with New Delhi's version of the truth, we have sent gunmen and modern firepower to deal with dissenters. No dialogue. Irom Sharmila was on fast for sixteen years. Did we engage with her? No. And what was she asking? For removal of gunmen from her homeland, removal of Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958 that applies to just the seven states and grants security forces the power to search properties without a warrant, and to arrest people, and to use deadly force if there is “reasonable suspicion” that a person is acting against the state. A similar law exists in J&K too. And when did she start protesting? After the 2 November 2000 Malom Massacre in which ten civilians were shot and killed while waiting at a bus stop by gunmen on New Delhi's payroll. The victims included Leisangbam Ibetombi, a 62-year-old woman, and 18-year-old Sinam Chandramani, a 1998 National Bravery Award winner. We just don't engage with dissenters. Look at how we are dealing with protesting farmers who are not even an hour's distance from Prime Minister's residence. Forget Prime Minister, not even his cabinet minister has gone and spoken with farmers so far. And they have been in Delhi since September last year. That is New Delhi's commitment to democracy and engagement with its citizens who disagree with its version of the truth. And most of us do not care because so far our beliefs have always been in sync with New Delhi. We dilly-dally sometimes and spank New Delhi with our comments but when it matters, we cover ourselves in the glorified piece of cloth called tricolour and start parroting the words that are certain to please the bosses in New Delhi.

Many misunderstand democracy as the government of all the people it governs, it isn't; democracy is a rule by the majority that derives its legitimacy and is tested on the basis of how it treats its minority. And that test, we are increasingly failing each passing day.

Syed Ali Shah Geelani being disallowed from moving out of his home in Srinagar. Photograph by Umer Asif from Kashmir Walla

Read More:

The night that Kashmir’s Syed Ali Shah Geelani died

Final moments of Geelani: a broken door, resisting family, and chaos

2010 profile of SAS Geelani – The Man Who Says No To New Delhi

#Kashmir #India #Independence #Death #loss #Freedom #NarendraModi #politics

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. In that regard, everyone must prepare a mental plan of things they would have done when they came to know of a novel virus on the horizon six months ago. Ravish Kumar of NDTV did a detailed show on coronavirus on February 18 where he asked, 'Is India prepared to tackle Coronavirus?'. Kerala already had some plan-of-action in place even before India saw its first case. Given all this, what all things would you have done since January to save your nation and its citizens from this new virus? Would you have for instance organized a massive rally for Trump in February in Ahmedabad? Would you have waited for toppling of a opposition led government in Madhya Pradesh to announce a nationwide lockdown? A day after Shivraj Singh Chouhan government was sworn in, Modi announced a national lockdown on 24 March. Just go and look at the crowded images of politicians from Madhya Pradesh during that time. And just read what has come to happen to that state vis-a-vis coronavirus now. Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh has himself tested positive. Cases in Ahmedabad have skyrocketed with its percentage of death highest in the country at one point. And reports are just in about Home Minister Amit Shah testing positive. Karnataka CM BS Yediyurappa has also tested positive along with his daughter. A cabinet minister in UP has succumbed to the virus. But Bhumi-Pujan celebration at Ayodhya in UP would go on as planned with none other than PM Modi as its chief guest. This isn't about politics. The signals these events sent (and will send) still remain. What was (and is) govt saying through these events? That India is a warm country and virus won't affect us? It would get killed itself from the sunstroke? That our people do yoga, we use haldi (turmeric) in our foods which will fight the virus? I'm not making up these things. These were some of the things said on our news channels by panellists. Our people heard them over and over again. And they saw their politicians, most powerful people in their nation, hugging and waving hands in the middle of massive crowds – they had every reason to believe the bunkum coming from the idiot box. The idiocy was legitimized by political manoeuvring. They were then made to believe how mass thali-banging would get the virus killed, how mass diya-lighting would destroy the virus. Oh! that was to boost health and essential workers morale? Then why are we not banging thalis now? By July 13 around 123 healthcare staff including 108 doctors have succumbed to coronavirus. They need morale-boosting more than ever now. Why is the big boss, erm Prime Minister Modi, not announcing such tasks now? Because, my friend, morale-boosting is not the aim of such tasks. The aim was (and is) to create images, get you to do things so as to make you feel something was being done, to calm your nerves and instil in you the idea that your government was doing something. Did that something get doctors and essential workers, their PPE kits and other safety equipment? No. Some did not even receive their salaries. Rajdeep Sardesai for many weeks continued his good fight to get stipends to Davangere junior doctors. In Gujarat, the state government inaugurated fake ventilators which were purchased and the state hospital that used them had its death rate close to (or more than) 50%. Pondicherry cancelled its order for the ventilators after news broke out. This did not stop Narendra Modi govt from procuring 5,000 ventilators from this Rajkot-based firm despite Ahmedabad’s largest COVID-19 hospital doctors, where an initial batch of 'ventilators' was installed, saying that they were not up to the mark. You wonder why such blatant negligence from Modi govt in risking people's lives. The reason lies in the close connection of this firm's current and former promoters being close to BJP, leading up to that controversial gift of an expensive suit to Prime Minister Modi. Gujarat government, in fact, acted on and isolated the journalists that broke this news. In whose interest was the news and in whose interest was govt action? Not much hard to guess, isn't it? Then our central government went on a 'made in India' march. This was again a distraction scheme. We need 'made in India', no doubt about it. But it won't happen in a day or month or even a year. It takes a thorough long-term plan. And 'made in India' does not translate into sub-standard goods. For instance, in Mumbai, the made-in-India ventilators turned out to be 'fake'. PMCARES ventilator maker too built fake ventilators – they fudged their software to hide poor performance. So we are buying coffins from people's donations. Take all offence you want, this is no time to sugarcoat words. Amit Shah or Yediyurappa's life won't be put on risk by these sub-standard ventilators, their life won't be endangered this way, it is only the poor, aam-junta that will face the brunt of this murderous system.

Too much gloomy news. Is there anything we can do now?

It is quite late now. Today, while India stands third in the total number of corona cases, the number of positives and deaths in 24 hours are highest in India. Six crucial months have just gone by and we still don't have a promising system in place through which we can see a timeline when we would be out of this danger like many countries have. According to official figures, 39,000 have already lost their life due to coronavirus in India. But there still remains a large population which is still breathing and until that is the case, there would still be room for improvement and hope.

There are some things that we can still do to be in better shape next month than we would be with our current approach and pace. But first, we need to understand when the virus infects a person and when they test positive. Both of these events do not occur on the same day. You don't start coughing and feeling breathless on day one of your infection. In fact, a lot of those who get infected don't even show symptoms of infection. So you might right now be sitting with someone who is not coughing but might still have coronavirus in their system. Or you might yourself be infected and yet look healthy from outside. Then there's the question of proportion of viral material. I might have viral material inside of me but my test might still turn negative. According to one report, it takes nearly five days since getting infected to accumulate enough viral material for one's test to come positive. But during these five days, the said person is capable of infecting others; which means two things. First, the testing numbers we get every day are not today's. They don't show who was infected today or even yesterday. Those numbers are of people infected at least five days ago. Second, and this is important to be understood, those who were found positive today have been spreading infection since at least last five days. Also, we are assuming here that we test individuals as soon as their viral material reaches required levels for their tests to be effective which is far far away from reality. All of this means one thing and one thing only, it is most important to identify the infected as soon as possible, isolate them and treat them. A day later and we risk infecting more people. If you assume one person can infect a minimum five people a day then that's not just five infected people. These five people will, in turn, infect others before enough viral material accumulates inside of them for effectively getting tested. That is assuming they will get tested positive on day five. In India, unlike say South Korea or the US, we don't have voluntary testing booths where you can walk in and get yourself tested. Our testing is still centrally managed – a govt body decides who should be tested and who should not. This needs to change, to begin with. And then we have to test more and more. Currently, India doesn't even appear in the top ten countries in terms of tests per million. And no, this is not because of resource crunch because we are testing far less than our own daily capacity. In essence, we are letting infected persons roam and spread the disease until it becomes impossible to ignore and be forced to test and isolate them, and when we start doing it, the numbers in the area would already be swelled so much that nearest COVID hospital would run out of its capacity. This isn't pulp fiction but our reality. And this is continuing because we aren't asking better from our representatives.

How can we change this and change it fast?

I get the “We cannot test everyone because India has such a large population” excuse. Yes, it is excuse now because it has been six months since the virus arrived on our shores. And our population has been this large like forever. It is not something that happened while we were under lockdown. Anyways, all said and done, what can we do now? First, there is absolutely no need to test everyone. You have to test a certain minimum percentage of the population in each pocket. Each village, each society, chawl, each by-lane – take your pick. Pick random persons in the market and test them on a random day, of course, with their informed consent. Otherwise, do what Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray suggested – test one person each in every household. What would happen with this information is, we would get a real picture of where the virus is and where it has not yet reached. This will help us with better monitoring. The current, red zone – green zone strategy is (and was) completely flawed. Not just because it is done at district level which Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan rightly criticized but many were declared green zone where not a single person was tested positive. For example, when my district was declared a green zone (meaning there existed not a single person infected with coronavirus), not a single person in my city was tested. If zero tests were done in India until today, whole of India would be a green zone. That doesn't mean the non-existence of the virus but abundance of collective stupidity. So, we need to take testing to all parts of India. This strategy should be combined with pooled testing. Now, what is pooled testing?

The gold standard for diagnosing infection is a sample obtained by a nasopharyngeal swab followed by the identification of viral RNA through a polymerase chain reaction (or P.C.R.) test. The swab is uncomfortable, the test is slow, and the supplies to perform it are in short supply. In pooled testing, laboratories combine samples taken from several people and test the multiple specimens together for the presence of genetic material from the novel coronavirus. If a batch tests negative for COVID-19, all those patients are cleared. If a batch tests positive, the specimens must be retested individually or in smaller groups. Such tests could be used to quickly clear groups of people who are not likely carriers, such as students returning to school, or individuals in areas with relatively low active COVID-19 infection levels. This can hugely improvise our testing rates. Until the vaccine arrives, testing, tracing and isolating remains the master strategy to deal with the pandemic. In case we decide to adopt pool testing we also need to be cautious of its limits. If the disease is prevalent in a community – more than around 10 per cent, according to the AACC – pooled testing stops being useful because so many follow-up tests are likely to be required. Pooled tests may also result in an increase in false negatives because combined samples are diluted, making it more difficult to pick up the virus material, according to the FDA. Quest, however, says that in clinical data it presented to regulators for its method of pooled testing, it would not have found a false negative in more than 3,000 total specimens. So all in all, pooled testing would help us identify infected faster and with lesser resources.

Pooled testing isn't the only way forward. Some companies are even making rapid antigen tests that can easily be done outside a lab. These tests look for certain proteins in the virus instead of genetic material. The problem is that they can miss more infections than a P.C.R. test. But they take only about 15 minutes to get a result, and if you run them in batch mode, you could most likely do more than 50 an hour. It’s not hard to imagine settings, like schools or sports teams, where such tests might be incredibly useful.

That's not all.

This is not war and healthcare workers are not front-line soldiers. Their deaths shouldn't go unnoticed like deaths in wars go. All of this was avoidable. In six months we should have gathered so much information that by now we should have been able to predict the pockets where cases could come and where they were highly unlikely. This would have helped us better and would have made lockdowns unnecessary thereby saving huge economical wealth that is lost now. But we don't have that crucial information. In fact, if we don't test aggressively, we would never reach that point of intelligence. So far, we are following the virus. We wait until it infects someone and that someone infects some others. We are not proactive enough. Our strategies are ad-hoc. We don't have any long-term plan of action. There is no collaboration with centre and states or states to states. States are fighting battles alone and their resources are drying up. Forget releasing funds, central govt has refused to dispatch the GST dues it owes to the states. All this information should reach the general public. They should know what is happening. In the battle of perceptions, Modi has so far managed his upper hand thanks to the disposal of TV media at his command. He can any day decide to address the public and TV will make sure his message is amplified. Will he ever tell you he has not released the money he owes to the state governments? Never. So how can you make an informed decision in such a scenario? You can't until you put efforts to equip yourself with more diverse information. And that is required. What would you do when hospitals refuse your infected kin, what would you do when the hospital refuses to discharge the dead body of your relative because you can't pay Rs. 5 lakh (treatment cost)? These things have happened in Delhi, in the national capital. Do you know that according to a serological survey, one in four persons in Delhi is infected by the virus? No, they did not make it to the statistics of 19 lakh which is current COVID count in India. They never will. If that's the number for Delhi, what do you think is that number for entire India? We would never know in the absence of testing.

You know there is one easy solution to keeping our numbers below 25 lakh. Stop testing anyone right away. We will anyhow get the test results of people tested so far and that will get us close to 25-25 but not above that mark. How good is that solution? Let everyone infect everyone. Let's control the count. That's what is more important right? That is what we have been doing so far.

This is a fight between two races. It's anyone's evolutionary instinct to replicate and infect as many as it could. Coronavirus is no exception to the rule. And in this race to survival, we need to equip ourselves with more and more information so as to know and fight better. India needs to study countries like Taiwan, South Korea, Vietnam, Singapore, Norway etc who have found success in controlling and containing the virus on how to not just fight the virus but also about how to support its economy and the most vulnerable population. All this should have happened long ago but better late than never.

That's all for now.

All said and done, we all still need to rely on social distancing, hand washing and ubiquitous masking. With testing, just as with masks, more is sometimes better than perfect.

#coronavirus #covid19 #India #vaccine #testing #pooledtesting #NarendraModi #Kerala #Mumbai #DonaldTrump

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. Newspapers were awash with pictures of people praying for relief from imminent danger, ordinary people to district collectors to workers. Everyone obliged. If WhatsApp University existed then, I'm sure it's double degree holders would churn out theories of how collective prayer would kindle the kundalini and force gods of rain to bring showers upon them. And we will all be sharing these forwards because why not?!

Fast forward to 2020 and coronavirus. Modi came on national television, and like the big boss from that horrible show, gave task after task to his subjects and his subjects duly complied. First, they came into the balcony and beat their thalis at 11 am, then they came out to light days at 9 pm, all the while generating theories after theories of how these actions will beat corona black and blue. None of those has of course born fruit, they never were meant to be anyway. India stands with the top five worst affected countries as of today. 

In both cases, there were discussions about why this was wrong. But in 2020, nobody invoked the constitution or shouted superstition like it was done in 1992. Sadly, Narendra Dabholkar who spearheaded opposition against such a dictate by then governor is no more with us; he was murdered by right-wing for speaking against superstitions while on his morning walk. In 1992, the reason for drought was not the absence of rains alone. Maharashtra uses its water with zero planning and in extremely unscientific ways. Do I need to mention multiple sugar mills and water-guzzling sugarcane crop that's grown everywhere even today in Maharashtra? The disaster was not natural but man-made. So solutions were to be man-made too. But of course, praying at 11 am and thereby giving an impression of something was done was far easy and way convenient than exploring and implementing real solutions. 2020 is no different. Our government failed to prepare itself when it had examples of successful and failed countries to follow by. India was not the first country to be affected by a coronavirus. At every step of the way, we had countries which had faced worse and also those that recovered from it. We deliberately choose to look away and not learn. And when the time was up and the storm was at the door, the emperor suggested, for his subjects to turn to superstition. And we did. Not for a moment did we pause and asked why? Or how was this going to help in any way? We did not question the first and so we were given the next task. This sequence of events did not start with thali-banging though. The dice of subservience was thrown way back in 2016. Demonetisation was the pilot for many of these things. The way we embraced and defended demonetisation had signalled to the highest offices what kind of brains their subjects had.

One of the fundamental duties listed by the Indian Constitution includes the exhortation to cultivate a scientific temper. The Constitution upholds scientific temper as a guiding principle for society and the new education policy calls for the inculcation of scientific thinking. Was there any scientific or rational reasoning behind 11 am praying in 1992? Or now with thali and diya? You bet not. Then why does the state, people in government, who are all required to uphold scientific temper, discarded it and asked its citizens to embrace unscientific garbage? The answer isn't too hard if one used their rational brains. Because it is easier to ask citizens to pray, bang thalis or light diyas. What are the alternatives? In 1992, then the state was required to institute an expert committee to study water usage patterns, suggest changes and implement those changes. We have so many committee reports now. And successive govt bodies have failed to implement them. Of course, in Maharashtra, there is all-powerful sugar-mills lobby and dealing with it requires an amount of political will. Then to get farmers on-board, make them stop what they are growing and help them switch to different crops requires thorough planning and grit as well. But those are the required solutions. No amount of praying, no god will help Maharashtra save itself from becoming a desert if it did not act on the ground. Less said about coronavirus and how thali-banging has helped to contain the virus the better. Our graph is only climbing up. There is no flattening of the curve happening soon except if we start fudging the data which we have already started doing here and there.

Governments won't change by themselves. It is easy for them to control a population that is god-fearing and superstitious. It is us that need to change and cultivate scientific temper and rationality. That is the only way which will enable us to question our governments, their nonsense, and thereby progress this strange democracy further. Right now, sadly, we are sliding into an abyss with no bottom.

P. S. Thali-banging and diya-lighting apart from being superstitious had political capital riding on them too. They were also aimed at strengthening the unquestioning relationship between the leader and the governed. #coronavirus #science #scientifictemper #atheism #superstition #rationality #india #narendramodi #politics #covid19 #constitution