Rebooting Hindutva

Disclaimer 1: While as a cultural nationalist, I am very much interested in resurgence of India & Hinduism (both being inseparable in my view). The topic is too vast for a single post, as well as too complicated for a single person.

Disclaimer 2: When I say Hindutva, I do not refer to original theory propounded by Savarkar, having never read, but on Hindutva, the political movement, which accompanied Ram Janam Bhoomi movement in 80's 

Note: Throughout the post, whenever I use "we", "us" it is for cultural nationalists.

A Clear Eyed Assessment Of Hindutva

Where we are

In the wake of Narendra Modi's convincing victory, it's easy for us to be complacent, that is why it is a sobering realization that this victory was not about Hindutva, hell it was not even about Nationalism, cultural or otherwise. It was, to cut a long story short, about acche din.

In fact why just stop at this election. Hindutva (again not referring to Savarkar, but the popular movement) has not scaled well. After its decimation in 1984 BJP was resurrected by Hindutva, not only getting most number of electoral support till then in its history (incl its previous avatar as BJS), but also becoming the focal point around which politics contours will take shape. 

That however changed after demolition of Disputed structure in 1992, while BJP did try to revive the movement both locally in UP and nationally, but could never regain the earlier traction, that along with difficulty in attracting allies (as well as hostile secular-establishment) ensured BJP put it in backburner.

All of this is a repeat of what I wrote in the immediate aftermath of BJP's defeat in 2009 elections. (If it is any comfort, these elections are not a mandate for Center-Right either)

Be that as it may, it doesn't leave us at enviable position. A deceptive ascendancy and frail majority after continued hegemony of sec-lib establishment, (with ABV government nary a intervening blip), we are in state of disorientation, both electorally as well as intellectually.

Electorally, for while there still is a core constituency for Hindutva (however, vaguely defined and understood) it is, at best marginal  In fact, if we can afford to be candid to ourselves for a moment, as far are electoral calculations are concerned, not only we might be irrelevant for large swathes of electoral map, we might also be at disadvantage due to "secular" polarization

Beyond the core constituency of course we have a broad spectrum of sympathisers, however for them Hindutva is seldom the first priority, further antics of Hindutva organizations (vandalism & violence) frequently alienate even the sympathisers.

Related to this (even if not apparent) is question of our intellectual bearings. What does contemporary Hindutva stand for ? 370 UCC, Ram Mandir ? Is there nothing more to Hindutva?

At risk of earning ire of fellow Hindutva Vadis, let me suggest, Hindutva as it exists at presents is not much more than a confused cacophony of slogans. It is true that there is real passion behind slogans, but in absence of direction, the passion will degenerate into lumpen behavior.

And then there is question of elections. We can't persuade voters to our side, if our side doesn't have any message or if we ourselves are confused.

Hindutva, could and should, be more than that. This post and this blogger are hardly the right medium to do justice to such a humongous project. However let me suggest that at the least Hindutva should be a civilizational project, meant to rejuvenate our atrophied motherland.

With that context, here is what I think should guide evolution of Hindutva.

1. Independence from Government - I am no doctrinarian libertarian, however there are valid reasons to be wary of government interference,  both general (corruption in proximity of power) and specific (the more we empower government in religious matters, the more likely it is that it will be used by sec-lib establishment to undermine Hinduism and Hindu Dharma )

2. Creation Of Institutions - We must build institutions to support and nurture Hindu Dharma through, documentation, instruction, dissemination, discussion and ideation. These institutions can be conventional as well as unconventional.

3 Creation Of Ecosystem - The institutions created should aim to be as comprehensible as possible wrt all the facets of civilizational project such as spirituality, history, politics, civics, philosophy etc through interdisciplinary exchange.

4. Cultivation of  knowledgeable and motivated supporter. Who can engage and contribute meaningfully in this project.

5. Integration with the existing social institutions, networks and frameworks. We might not know what Hindutva is at this point, but we know what it is not It is not an attempt to recreate the civilization from scratch or upend the existing order for some utopian scheme. Rather it is an attempt to gradually and incrementally heal, nourish and strengthen our motherland.

6. Securing the capital to finance- Last but not the least, such a civilizational effort will need considerable amount of capital to sustain, which is only possible if we also have businessmen and traders, industrialists and financiers onboard this project.

To reiterate what I said few days back on twitter.

"Along with Chatrapati Shivaji, we also need Samarth Guru Ramdas, along with Maharana Pratap, we also need Bhama Shah"

To be continued...

How to survive a zombie outbreak while campaigning for Lok Sabha.

Quick thoughts on Kejriwal's resignation.

Well if wishes were horses, beggars would ride, more importantly if wishes were Alison Brie, engineering students would be very happy. That however, is not the point of the post.

When I wrote about solving Saint Kejriwal, I was also wishing for the possibility however feeble of averting the scenario of Kejriwal launching an aggressive campaign for Lok Sabha.

Of course Kejriwal being a shrewd political operative made the same calculation, and was going to do everything to escape from the facing scrutiny for governance, and he did just that successfully.

He is being mocked by BJP supporters, and it is possible he might amount to nothing. still I remain wary of the potential for damage that Kejriwal possess to Narendra Modi's juggernaut.

To understand this, one must understand the dynamics underpinning AAP meteoritic rise. It is simply this, urban population, in particular middle class, is outraged at the political class including, not without justification, mired in culture of civic and political ignorance, Kejriwal provides two functions. The more familiar role, is of hope, of promise to deliver from the morass. The less recognize role is that of outlet for catharsis, for venting out all the frustration and  anger that middle class has against "the system".

Kejriwal's main purpose was never to govern, or to eliminate corruption. His aim as far as 2014 Lok Sabha elections are concerned, is to undercut BJP as much as possible, either resulting outright in third front government or a weak BJP government which will hopefully collapse before its terms.

Kejriwal plan is to wage an aggressive no holds barred campaign against Modi in order to undercut him. In that he hopes to channel above mention anger of middle class to build and sustain momentum of his campaign.

Is there any way to mitigate the damage that Kejriwal may cause to BJP campaign, in my view there are six ways to do this.

1. To employ Arnobspeak, Modi must never ever, ever ever engage with Kejriwal mano-o-mano, that will allow Kejriwal to draw Modi in a personal contest, to Modi's disadvantage in my view.

2. Modi should de-emphasize corruption as issue. That will expose BJP's flank to attack by Kejriwal. BJP supporters may argue till the cows come home that Gadkari and Yeddyurappa are not guilty. However in elections popular perceptions matter and as far as public perception goes BJP is as guilty of Congress as Congress.

3. Modi must emphasize his credentials as outsider to Delhi Durbaar. Modi's campaign should run a below the radar campaign silently delinking himself from the intrigues and shenanigans of Delhi leadership

4. He must put development at centre of his campaign. He must convince middle class that growth should the first priority for the next government.

5. If corruption is BJP vulnerability, capability and stability are its strong points.  Even though Modi campaign shouldn't make personal attacks on Kejriwal, it must weaken Kejriwal by emphasizing importance of stable ad capable government. Middle class should be scared with prospect of havoc caused by unstable and inept government at the centre. This has the advantage that performance and capability are achilles heels for Kejriwal.

6. Last BJP should try to subvert Kejriwal campaign from within by waging war of attrition. Whenever Kejriwal is mentioned in the news cycle it should be about the conspiracies and brinkmanship like binny episode within his campaign. The time Kejriwal spends on firefighting within his campaign, is the he can't damage Modi's campaign.

How to Out-Kejriwal Kejriwal (Or How Do You Solve A Problem Like Kejriwal - II) Updated

Note: Update at the end

This post is sort of update of previous post. Also to clarify this post is based mostly on stray observations and not on empirical data.


Here are some more suggestions on how to tackle Kejriwal, but before that how not to tackle him.

1. Narendra Modi shouldn't directly engage with him, never punch below your weight. Once Modi directly addresses Kejriwal he will be treated on par with Modi by media and from that point onwards Media will compulsorily contrast any any coverage of Modi will become

2. BJP leaders should always be engage with Kejriwal respectfully, and observe the decorum.

This needs explanation. Personally I have nothing but distaste for Kejriwal, the man is a rank opportunist, the way he has dealt with BJP since start of India Against Corruption has been nothing short of utterly dishonest, boorish, and uncouth. I can understand if some BJP leaders are tempted to pay the populist charlatan in the same coin. However as tempting as the prospect may be, BJP must eschew it, in fact it should pass this throughout its chain of leaders and cadres, any engagement with Kejriwal must not cross the bounds of civil discourse.

Why is that ? Glad you asked!

In any fight Arvind Kejriwal will be the underdog, as far as optics go plebeians don't appreciate top dog pummeling underdog, there is a further glitch, BJP is part of political class. At present, middle class is downright hostile to political class, blaming it, not without some justification for present catastrophe.

Kejriwal has shrewdly positioned himself at champion of "aam aadmi". In what should concern any BJP well wisher, the middle class supporter doesn't just support Kejriwal he identifies with him. any ill advised comment against him by any BJP leader will be perceived by Kejriwal supporter as assault on him, an aam aadmi, by the all powerful political machinery.

Kejriwal is aware of this, which is why he will continue with his utterly disgraceful passive aggressive act to provoke some BJP leader into making some kind of personal remarks, after which Kejriwal can bask in the glory of martyrdom, a hero having to undergo personal humiliation for sake of public.
This is all the more reason why BJP should not fall in Kejriwal's trap

So what should BJP do then.

To summarize previous graph, Kejriwal is covered by deflector shield, before BJP can take him down it must destroy the shield. As I suggested in previous post BJP should relentlessly subject Kejriwal to intense scrutiny, however the focus of scrutiny shouldn't  be on personal honesty and integrity of Kejriwal which will be counter-productive, but on a. his competence to govern and his ability to seize of the issues b. honesty of rest of the the AAP members c. his judgement

To give an example, when criticizing Kejriwal's many flip flops, BJP shouldn't question his honesty, but his judgement and competence, further more BJP must emphasize the cost in terms of money, time as well as governance to public caused by theatrics of Kejriwal and his party

Above all BJP must eschew the temptation to reply in kind, it must not resort to histrionics or any kind of action that can be seen as gimmicky, instead all its criticism, arguments and policy pronouncement must be calm, dispassionate and well reasoned. Above all, BJP should try its utmost to impress upon public that its criticism of Kejriwal is not opportunistic, but a result of concern for public well being.

Above discussion doesn't mean Kejriwal can't be paid back in the same coin, only that BJP can't be involved with that. It is possible to out-Kejriwal Kejriwal by organizing otherwise apolitical section of people behind specific emotional hot button issues.

For instance, it shouldn't be difficult to start a agitation against Kejriwal's remarks on Batla encounter or Bhushan's stand on Kashmir or Naxalism, it will hurt Kejriwal's credibility even more if those directly involved with issue were to participate in the agitation. Similarly agitation can be started wrt even policy issues. Only condition to this is BJP's fingerprints shouldn't be visible on this/

The above two pronged attack can damage the positive public image of Kejriwal through attrition enabling BJP to go in for kill.

 Update: One point missed in above discussion was the role of social media, so far BJP supporters have been very strong in social media, however their monopoly has been challenged by Kejriwal supporters. Although role of social media is exaggerated, it does play a important role both for BJP and AAP.
My observation so far has been that majority of AAP supporters are as uncouth and deluded as Kejriwal, nature of the platform. Nature of the platform and the behavior by AAP supporters tempts BJP supporters to reply in kind. I confess, I am guilty of this too. However, if we want to persuade Kejriwal supporter to see the reality of AAP, we must control our urges, we must not make any personal attacks on interlocutor, further as far as possible we should try to refrain from making personal attacks on Kejriwal.

I am not sure if this is practically possible, I am pretty convinced it will not be possible in my case.

How do you solve a problem like Kejriwal (Updated)

Update at the end

At the end of this post I had cautioned about the remote possibility of Kejriwal playing spoilsports. Well with the Delhi elections the possibility just got less remote. The surprising turn of events culminating in Arvind Kejriwal taking oath as Chief Minister has dramatically altered the possibilities for Lok Sabha.

In a nutshell Arvind Kejriwal has become the great secular hope. Our sec-lib establishment which is desperate to stop Modi juggernaut has come around to view Kejriwal as its champion. For them such a drastic turnaround in their view has a simple logic, Kejriwal appeals most to urban middle class voters, which used to be core constituency for BJP and more importantly Modi must attract if he hopes to upstage Delhi Sultanate. For the establishment then, the calculation becomes straightforward, more Kejriwal is successful in convincing urban voters, less likely Modi is to be at the helm of the things.

The problem for the BJP in my view is that the assessment of establishment seems correct. Anecdotal evidence suggests that even normally apathetic and apolitical middle class is warming up to Kejriwal. Kejriwal, and his network of highly motivated volunteers can leverage their strong online presence to quickly scale up their political operations at the grassroots and hence convert positive perception for Kejriwal into votes.

Ofcourse this will not convert into many Lok Sabha seats for Kejriwal at such a short notice. But it will undercut BJP votes which is the main aim of establishment and I suspect Kejriwal.

Going forward, strategy for establishment media is going to be simple, wall to wall positive coverage of Kejriwal (accompanied by incessant negative coverage of BJP), similarly expect Kejriwal to reserve and direct his strongest attacks on Modi and BJP.

Which brings us to our main concern, how should BJP tackle Kejriwal. I am afraid that in terms of immediate action, there is hardly anything BJP can do. The reasons behind Kejriwal's appeal to middle class is his status as political neophyte as well as his open contempt and disdain for political system and process, both of which resonates with middle class. It is clear BJP being on wrong side of both the issues, can not hope to convince the disenchanted middle class.

Luckily though, BJP has a crucial ally, his name is Arvind Kejriwal.

Currently middle class is smitten with him, however as the quotidian reality of governance sinks, the untenable nature of blatantly populist policies of Kejriwal will gradually become clear to middle class and hopefully its fascination with Kejriwal will wear off.

Both Kejriwal and Congress realize this. I am reasonably sure that as a countermeasure they are looking for "martyrdom" of Kejriwal. Congress will withdraw support from Kejriwal on some pretext or other. It will not endear Congress to middle class, however at this point Congress has reconciled itself to middle class voting against it. Crucially for Congress, such a "martyrdom" act by Kejriwal will further boost his popularity among the middle class.

BJP can foil this strategy by deploying "liquid oxygen". In a famous Ajeet joke, the villains asks his henchman "Raabert" to throw hero in "liquid oxygen", reasoning, liquid will not let the hero live and oxygen will not let the hero die. This is exactly how BJP should proceed.

First the oxygen, BJP should promise that it will play role of constructive opposition, further it should promise then if Congress withdraws support on any flimsy grounds, it will not vote against Kejriwal government.

Now the liquid part, BJP should do its utmost to keep pressure on Kejriwal, by questioning and exposing the harebrained schemes of Kejriwal and Gang, by subjecting each and every step of Aam Aadmi Party to intense scrutiny, and publicizing every shenanigans to middle class.

And hope that middle class will wake up from its dream.

Update: As always I forgot one minor point, by denying Kejriwal his "martyrdom" act and keeping heat on him, BJP can ensure that Kejriwal remains pinned to Delhi and is unable to cause any nationwide damage.

Arvind Kejriwal's tips for performance appraisal

Many eons ago, when Ravikiran had not been bitten by Ayn Rand, he had written an excellent post on Sonia Gandhi, this post is inspired by the same post.

Manager: So how do you assess your performance ?

Arvind Kejriwal: I think that my performance has been outstanding.

M: Well that's interesting, because I see you have not delivered anything in the last year!

AK: That's correct.

M: In that case, don't you think your self assessment is a bit inflated.

AK: Not at all, you see, you are looking at this from the wrong angle.

M: I am not sure I follow you, see for example Narendra and his team have delivered a killer app to our customers and while Rahul and his legacy team have been nothing but disaster at the least they have delivered something.

AK: See. that is the problem, this obsession with delivery. May I suggest this is the wrong way of appraising, and further, if I may, there is a better way.

M: Oh really, well what is that better way.

AK: Why good man, it is just before your eyes. See I have not produced a single bug. Whereas, your much vaunted Narendra model of software development has resulted in nothing but tens and tens of bugs. It is clear that both Narendra and Rahul are failures.

M: Now wait a minute, Rahul and his team has worked since the beginning of this company, and they have more experience, on the other hand Narendra and his team delivered a far better product in far lesser time than Rahul and team. In fact I am thinking of promoting Narendra.

AK: No! You must not do that, you have been deceived by Narendra using ideas such as delivery and what not. Our top priority, scratch that, our only priority, should be quality. We can not compromise on it. In fact I propose that zero defect should be our only goal, delivery should be optional, in fact since delivery is impediment in achieving zero defect goal, I think we should do away with delivery. And I think you will agree that no one is more qualified to achieve goal of zero defect without delivering anything whatsoever than myself.

M: Now that you have put it this way, your logic seems impeccable to me, I think I will promote you instead.

AK: Now that this small matter is out of the way, here is my list of 18 conditions before I accept promotion.

Why They Hate Narendra Modi

A brief post this

Oldtimer's post on Modi-baiters has reminded me of a point I have been meaning to make since quite sometime, the visceral hatred for Narendra Modi. This hatred, I used to think was analogous to two minute hate, in this scenario NaMo is to lib-sec establishment, what Emmanuel Goldstein was to the party in 1984.
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However lately I have revised my opinion. While it is not clear whether Emmanuel Goldstein exists (indeed in 1984 it is strongly hinted at the end that he is fictitious), however it is clear within the novel that even he exists he and his organization are an ineffectual resistance against party, either in physical terms or in propaganda, we know this because Winston Smith, the protagonist,  never indicates any presence of Goldstein beyond two minute hate. From this, I think it is safe to conclude that only purpose Goldstein was mentioned at all by Party was to divert and release desperation and anger of public at their wretchedness.

Now in part, lib-sec est does invoke NaMo to consolidate Muslims against Hindus, however there is a crucial difference. Unlike Goldstein, NaMo is a formidable opponent. He has captured the imagination of aspirational middle class against craven venality of a cruel yet buffoonish establishment. He holds the promise, however feeble, of upending cozy consensus of Delhi Durbar, of the false consensus forced upon India by a self loathing and incestuous intelligentsia.

And this is why they hate NaMo because they are afraid that he can't be bought, and that he can snatch the one thing they covet most, the power to maipulate the will.

YOU SANCTIMONIOUS TURKEY!*

(Originally posted on CRI)

Note: Usually I refrain from posting as this will drag down the quality of CRI especially since theinfamous Julio-Claudian supporter joined it   but this time …. well I cant control you are  forewarned!

Yes Sherna Gandhy, there is nothing demeaning about calling Uma Bharati  “Sexy Sanyasin”, or publishing innuendos about Bhanvari Devi.

Neither is there anything demeaning about some horny octogenarian  doing a winsome foursomein Raj bhavan.

But heavens forfend that Narenda Modi call someone ,  who got 50 crores in suspicious circumstances while being a minister’s, you know, girlfriend, “a 50 crore girlfriend”, that ma’am is inexusable.

After all as herstory tells us reality is just a conspiracy by patriarchy to bind womyn.

PS You forgot to add “chaiwallah”

* Reference here