Ok Now What ?

We are on our way to wrap up lost. The problem for us is we don't know what to watch next. Any ideas ?

Of Love Jihad And Demographics

I have been meaning to comment on what Frog ji wrote earlier. What are my views on “Love Jihad”? The usual caveats apply, I have no data regarding this, what follows is based on hunch and in presence of data this may not longer be true.

 

Even if we concede (and it is a big if because it is not that clear) that some Muslim men are marrying Hindu women in order to convert them, the numbers involved are going to be so minuscule as to be of no relevance. What this issue is about feelings. For many Hindu Fascist conversion of Hindu women evokes the same emotions as the specter of enemy tribes raiding and carrying off women of your tribe. I have to confess, I get bothered about this in my moments of funk. All said and done, however, it is not a matter of concern and in a way similar to worrying about minarets.

 

Having said that far more important is the issue of demographics. Now allow to me reclaim my Hindu Fascist cred here, I don’t wish to live in a Muslim majority nation, nor do, if I happen to have any descendants, wish for them to live in a Muslim majority nation, nor for India to return to fold of Ummah in future. Having said that I do find concern about demographics overwrought, and I say as someone who himself fretted over this. My personal experience suggests that Muslims both of middle class as well as of lower class have concerns similar to others, i.e. prosperity. Sure on average Muslims are more religious than Hindus, but demographics is not their major concern, having said that, the real problem is ghettoization of Muslims, physical as well as mental of both the classes, which isolate those inside from the wider social dynamics.

 

I think if people are serious about cultural nationalism, they should instead focus on breaking the chains which shackle the Hindu conscious.

 

Programming Of Politics

Many liberals (and conservatives such as Sam Tanenhaus) who bemoan the epistemic closure of conservative mind consider proper role of conservatism in politics as a check on excesses of liberalism.

 

To use programming parlance liberalism represents the normal flow of politics, with conservatism as the handler for exceptional conditions.

 

My view is that the ideal politics is reverse of this. It is conservatism which should be the norm and liberalism should exist to renovate what is obsolete and defective.

Exhibition Wrestling

Of course now it has been superseded by more urgent matter of IPL but when for few days in the immediate aftermath of Dantewada massacre Maoist menace was on the front pages, one of the prevailing talking points was Chidambaram as a hard liner on Maoist groups. To me this has all the optics of exhibition wrestling (or Noora Kushti as it is called in Hindi). Chidambaram has been Home Minister for quite some time, yet except for tough talk I am not sure he is done anything of note. What makes it especially galling is that he has been proclaimed as the best home minister ever by the dynasty retainers in the media. All that he has done to tackle insurgency is to propose creation of new bureaucracy with no concrete proposals for its power and coordination with various agencies. Further he continues to state that Maoism is state’s problem (as does many in the media), when it is clear states have been unsuccessful in tackling insurgency. Given all this one can not be faulted for concluding that all this is for public consumption with no intention for follow through as larger and larger swathes of India are lost to Maoists.

Aphorism: Civilization

Civilization is conspiracy of Beta against Alpha and Omega.

Embrace the inner homophobic

Ok that was just for attention. Assuming I have yours, let me clarify I don’t think we (and by we I mean average heterosexual males) are homophobic in the sense that there is any desire howsoever weak to commit acts of violence against homosexuals. However let’s be frank, and we can be because there is no body but us (ignore Respectable Ma’am for this post), and confess, we are discomfited by the homosexual acts (ref NTTAWT orig). Now this is my hunch, I have never conducted survey about it and if any survey concludes differently I would accept that, until then I remain convinced this is the general behavior mostly on the basis of having lived my whole life among heterosexual male as a heterosexual male. Now one can attribute this to culture, and while it may hold true for Christian religion (I will come back to it later), I don’t think it is so in case of India because homosexuality is something which is hardly ever discussed, favorably or otherwise, in our society. This might imply that the cause of discomfort is more fundamental than what is normally believed (i.e. religious dogma). I find this interesting. From a genetic perspective this is counter intuitive as for heterosexual males if there are homosexual males it means less competition. Ideally this is something which should be a subject of scientific research, considering the politics associated with it however that seems unlikely. If investigated this might explain the outlook of different cultures towards homosexuality. Ancient Indian society while in general not approving of homosexuality didn’t place a high priority on it, whereas homosexuality can be said to be one of the main preoccupation of the Abrahamic religions. Indeed one is struck by how vehemently and fixatedly Bible condemns homosexuality going so far as to categorize it as capital offence. I have read somewhere (not able to recall at present) that this might be owing to constant state of warfare in ancient Levant. Most probably the cause is complicated with genetic as well as cultural factors.

Thin Gruel

Now admittedly I am not the go to guy for recent healthcare reform in US, considering I was more fascinated with the political theatre than with the policy.

With the necessary caveats dispensed while I am generally disposed towards conservative position, I am left underwhelmed by the argument that mandates are unconstitutional.

Usually the arguments goes like this, “US government can’t force citizens to buy a products. Mandates or fines levied on citizen for not buying insurance policy amount to the same. Hence the mandates are unconstitutional”. This is to me seems like too much lawyering. I am not an expert on US constitution so may be I am getting it wrong, but it is well within legislative prerogative to impose taxes. Mandate in effect is a tax, sure it is discriminatory, but then so is tax credit for children, or tax deduction for agriculture. In its favor thought it is far more credible than Obama being communist.

Pitching The (Big) Tent

A brief note on big tent which I have been meaning to write as a follow up to the earlier centre right post. In short, I am not really fond of the term. However this is not because it is borrowed from lexicon of American politics, but because it is more or less irrelevant for India. Now big tent in US refers to accommodation of divergent viewpoint within a loose political framework, allowing tolerance of some deviation from the ideology. This means the resultant political alliance is moderate compared to the individual component. For example Republican Party is considered a alliance of three groups, fiscal conservative (people who hate poor), social conservative (people who hate gays) and defense conservative (people who hate Muslims). Now obviously these groups have some overlap, but it is not enough to win a majority on basis of a limited agenda (of hating poor, gays and Muslims). This results in adoption of a more accommodating platform to cobble a majority. The reason this concept can not be transposed to Indian right wing politics overlap is dynamic is different in three ways. One though bloggers are deceived by selection bias but broadly speaking in India social conservative >> security conservative > fiscal conservative. Second the overlap between these categories is much greater than US.

 

But the most significant reason which renders the above irrelevant is the fact that in India the politics follows a different dynamics, an inherently socialist one viz. patron client model, and this is the reason I have no use for ”Big Tent”.

 

 

I hate Shashi Tharoor

Not because of his alleged corruption which to be frank is chump money compared to the scale of corruption in India, but because he has managed yet again to suck oxygen from far more serious issue of Maoists insurgency. Instead we have to witness farce of politicians demanding takeover of IPL by government because of corruption.

Dear Indian Obamabots

Mahabharat

To give the devil his due

Now it is possible for Hindu Fascists to disagree with Sadanand Dhume, however we must note that he is the rare journalist to actually admit that Godhra was perpetrated by a Muslim mob and not an accident, or worse slyly hint that it was handiwork of VHP. When one is reviled as much as us Hindu Fascists by the sec-lib establishment, one must count his blessings.