Band karo ye bakwas

And since I am speaking truth to inanity, could someone please, with sugar on top, clue in me about this famous Mumbaikar spirit. Oh yeah city was up on its feet barely a day or two after 26/11, as it was after all the bomb blasts, flood, and all the acts of God and man. But as disrespectful as it may seem, it has less to do with the courage or spirit, and more to do with a grinding daily struggle for common comforts, if anything Mumbai with its frenzy reminds one  of ant colony or beehive, that of anything resembling human spirit.

Sach Ka Samna

All right, this may sound disrespectful but this is too important to be hushed for sake of politeness. Let’s face the truth, we were asking for what happened last year in Mumbai. We were asking, not in the sense that a pretty girl wearing high heels is asking for rape, but as some mentally unhinged masochist who is compelled to subject herself to flailing in zed’s basement.  As a nation we love victim hood. Because we have been indoctrinated by the secular liberal vanguard of nothingness that to be victim is to be noble, to submit to Islamic barbarism is a proper expiation for the cardinal sin of being a kaffir and a dhimmi, a just retribution for imaginary Islamic grievances and paranoia. We also love being victim because for us this is the only way we can have west’s attention and what’s even better (for us), its sympathy. But we are deluded, because weakness is never respected, the earth will never be inherited by the meek and the lamb will always lie in the lion’s belly.

 

 

Au Contraire

We can not fix our drains unless we find the willing to fix terrorism.

२६ / ११

Revenge Of Cheerleader

*Spoiler Warning*

 

Horror genre has one particular cliché (among many others), the Cheerleader. This Cheerleader character is a pretty girl, mostly blonde, remarkable for her annoying combination of vivacity and stupidity. She is usually first to be slain by the killer, often in a particularly macabre fashion, when she has sneaked to some isolated place to fool around with her boyfriend (who is a football player). This character is usually just there to get the things started.

 

The makers of Heroes have inverted this cliché. We have, in Claire (who incidentally was a cheerleader), the perfect embodiment of all what is irritable about the Cheerleader, and yet, in an ironical twist, she is immortal, and annoying like hell.

 

Anyway since we are on horror genre, I had a sort of insight, which is not particularly original. Horror movies, in a very grotesque way, are closest any genre comes to morality tales of bygone era.

Aphorism: Vanguard

Secularism is vanguard of Nihilism.

It is about ideas.

Consider this as an addendum to previous post. Reg. BJP President, I find unable to make myself more enthusiastic about the debate. This is because I am convinced that whatever the merits of proposed candidate(s), he (or she) can not revive BJP on his (or her) own. People may not realize but when Rajnath Singh was anointed he was hailed in the BJP sympathetic circles as the grass root politician who could recapture Delhi by reviving BJP in the UP. We all know how that story turned out. I am afraid that supporters who are pinning their hopes on some particular candidate *Nitin Gadkari cough cough* are just setting up ground for future disappointment. Of course this is not to say a charismatic leader doesn’t matter. A popular leader will of course help in the revival. However it is crucial to understand that present political environment precludes the possibility of any leader with pan-Indian appeal. Similarly while election of president by workers will, to some extent, undo the disconnect between grass root workers and the leadership, it in no way guarantees that public support. In the end it is about ideas.

Political realignment

If you, like me, believe that Buddhadeb Bhattacharya is a gentleman (although of left suasion) and not a commie bastard, then I think one can make case of curious realignment in west Bengal, which goes something like this. As the things stand in West Bengal there is an unprecedented situation whereby Mamata Bannerji led TMC is running left to the ruling Left Front and appears to be winning, of course with help from Maobadis and Islamists. In contrast the Bengali aspiring middle class is slowly consolidating behind Buddhadeb Bhattacharya. Now since the BJP at core is a party of Hindu middle class, it makes sense, in a very strange way, for BJP to atleast tacitly support Left against TMC. This will bring dividend not only in immediate elections, but also in long term as it provides a foothold for BJP to expand its base.

Again while some people may find absence of a popular face in West Bengal BJP as a serious handicap, I think it is an advantage, in the sense that it will force BJP to discover ideas which find resonance with the people.

Sangham Janata saranam gacchami

(This post took two months to complete)

I don't have anything to say about Maharashtra elections, or the UP elections, or even Karnataka crisis. There are people far more capable than myself to comment on them. I will restrict myself to observing that Congress is now the default choice (or as we used to say TINA).

No what interests me more are the efforts by all and sundry to find villains for impending demise of BJP, and the buck almost invariably stops at Rajnath Singh. Almost everyone agrees that  it is his provincialism and insecurity which has ruined the party. Now it is not my case that the Rajnath Singh doesn't deserve the criticism. However my problem with the criticism is that it falls far short of identifying BJP's malaise. For sure Rajnath Singh has proven to be a terrible party president, however as far as precedent goes he is the norm rather than the exception. With the exception of Shree Advani in 90's, past presidents have been, at best ineffectual, and at worst venal. This includes those anointed by RSS, as is the incumbent.

To understand the fall of BJP, one should realize that rise of BJP had only tangentially to do with competency of those at the helm of organization, or, contrary to what RSS and its sympathizers would like to believe, "the ideology". No, what catapulted BJP on center stage was that for some time following the end of Congress's hegemony BJP became recipient of people's aspirations. This in turn owed itself to popular discontent with the corruption and stagnation visible in society. BJP being outside the boundaries of liberal-secular establishment benefited from this. In this it was similar to previous non Congress experiments. What was different was that the challenger to Congress was not a rag tag coalition of socialist parties but a single nationalist party.

Which brings us to first point, the most crucial mistake BJP made was to believe that it had got a mandate for what passes off as "ideology" in the Sangh Parivar, while in truth it had got a political probation. Now to be fair NDA government performed well enough. However BJP leadership was unable to realize that its ascendancy was facilitated by the unprecedented support for Ayudhya movement, the norm for national politics being aggregate of local issues. This mistake resulted in BJP fighting holding the banner of "India Shining" which predictably failed to enthuse the electorate. More importantly BJP was not helped by various scandals during NDA's tenure which robbed the party of its sheen or USP. The defeat in 2004, however shocking, was nothing more than a misfired strategy, one from which it was possible to recover.

However failure of BJP to rebound and its subsequent descent to irrelevance are owing to three causes, first, already mentioned, was erosion of its credibility, and with that, the claim of being "party with difference", second, absence of any political platform meant that BJP could not act as effective opposition and cause any significant damage to UPA government. But more serious than these two is the fact that Party has for all purposes isolated itself from the public. Party has been hijacked by fixers and ideologues who have other priorities than public approval. This, in the final analysis, is the malaise which has corroded BJP from within.
If BJP has to revive it should not be looking in direction of Sangh, instead it must win back the trust of the public.

Aphorism : Idolatory

The quickest way to kill a thought is to make an idol out of it.

Relationship advice

Guys don’t love for sake of love, love because you love.

Aphorism: World

This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang, but a bureaucracy.

Freedom

Freedom comes from barrel of gun.

Nepal Maoists admit links with Indian Naxals

I am shocked, shocked! This is inconceivable. What next, Pakistan is trying to destroy India !

Our democracy stinks ...

Because we litter our roads. This should have been a chapter of superfreakonomics.

 

Also global warming is hoax*.

 

*Not really, I am just trying to rile up Respected Ma’am.

People

Please don’t try to strike up conversation when one is trying to relieve himself, especially conversations about designs or implementations. In fact, try, as far as possible, not to even glance in one’s direction. It is very discomfiting and just stops the flow.