A voice of sanity

should be heard by all especially secularists.

The tale of two surveys - II

Alternatively titled "Inside a single track mind"

The story of that remarkable survey is not over yet. The other part of the survey carried out by our comrades (N. Ram, Rajdeep Sardesai) presented the priorities of "common man". It turns out that common man is more concerned about theft or robbery or riots than terrorist attacks, well I don't know what is surprising about it. What however surprising is when Hindu declares breathlessly that findings challenge,

"…`security experts (who) have made us believe that security has become a paramount national concern, that people have become much more anxious about terrorist attacks, that they hold the Centre responsible for the lapses, and that they would support hard, aggressive policies to tackle terrorism."

Nitin in his post illustrated how the conclusion (that people do not consider threat of terror significant) is at best incorrect and at worst disingenuous.

What I find amusing is even if granted that terrorism is not concern number one for public, how is that refutation of security experts. When security experts call terrorism a national concern it doesn't reflect the mood of hoi polloi, rather it is concerned implications to national security and the harm that it may cause to Indian citizens either in short run or long run.

This sort of obfuscation is typical of progressive establishment. Faced with facts which challenge foundations of its make believe world, it resorts to "the common man" argument other wise known as soapbox. It goes thus, it is not important to common man, hence it should not be discussed/debated.

The first (and the easy one) refutation is that even if subject 'X' is not priority number one for common man, it in no way no implies that the subject 'X' should be dismissed without any debate, it only means that the discussion (thread for geeks) will be, well of lower priority.

If the debates in public debate are to have any meaning they have to be concurrent.

The second point is not immediate, to take the example of the survey I am sure foreign policy would not have entered anywhere in the top ten. Indeed it will not be a stretch to imagine that worrying about Afghanistan is not part of common man's life. Does this imply that Government should shut down all its embassies and foreign ministry?

This is where our comrades make a mistakes. In democracy state is responsible to will of majority,however this doesn't mean state should limit its functions to the latest opinion poll.
State has well defined duties which it should discharge. If it is incompetent in any area(s) which matters most to majority, it will be punished by the voters. For others it is held accountable by analysts, and those who are interested in that area.

The attempt of our progressive brethren to confine role of state to some cleverly crafted questionnaire and refusal to hold it responsible for what are its important functions and duties does a great damage to body polity. Governance can not be held captive to bullet points.

The tale of two surveys - I

Alternatively titled "Spinners Narrative"

Recently Hindu/CNN-IBN published a survey on mood of the nation.The wisdom that flowed through the exercise was (in short newsworthy bites) that if elections were to happen today BJP will perform poorly. Well, bad news about BJP are not exactly something which is rare nowadays so this blogger being an unabashed BJP shill did what one could do in this situation, that is suppressing minorities, secularists and progressives.

However Prasanna had the forbearance to read the whole thing and he found the survey well a little hard to digest.I mean Congress getting 240 seats, very doubtful !

I admit this was a surprise to me, because while no one can accuse likes of N. Ram and Rajdeep Sardesai of being neutral or unbiased, Yogendra Yadav even though being a socialist was tolerably objective .

This means he has become a life time member of Sonia bhajan mandali, the other option (of him being correct) will no doubt warm the cockles of "secular rights".
Of course this will mean erosion of freedom and return of mai-baap government is a small price to pay for defeating the communal forces

Afterthought: I should make it clear, I have no problem with N. Ram or Rajdeep Sardesai being partisan (I have made it clear). What I object is,

1. The unwillingness on part of secularists in media to come clean. Please if you want to fight, do it in open. The way our progressive clique apportion the role of Judge, Jury,Prosecutor,Witness, Executioner & Priest is what riles me.

2. The failure of "common man" in light of surmounting evidence to see through this partisanship and chicanery of the ELM.

If it is any consolation, it is that Journalists were always like this. To confirm one just has to read Mark Twain description of journalism in his age. Journalists are modern civilization's answer to rumour mongers of ancient years.

Profiling in time of terrorism.

The recent detention of 12 Indians (who happen to be Muslims) on a Mumbai bound North West flight has resulted in levelling of the charge of racism by a section of English media against west.

Frankly speaking one is little puzzled by this charge. Was the decision of crew to alert security agency for the behaviour of the passengers was excessive? It might have been, in the good old days, when terrorist was your neighbourhood anarchist,or our favourite communist or some disgruntled ethnic group from backwaters feeling shortchanged.

Unfortunately these are not the good old days, west is facing the menace of Islamic terrorism, and it is bewildered by it, partly because the religious zealotry exhibited by those groups was last experienced by west around more than 600 years ago and it has no memory of Crusades or for that matter Charles the Hammer.

But the most important reason is that under the influence of 20th century liberal movements, west has assumed that the liberal values it espouses are universal accepted which of course is divorced from reality. This assumption ,however results in setting up of a false moral equivalency.

To cut a long story short this puzzlement ("why do they hate us!") leads to state of fear. Faced with a enemy who has no accomplishment (and hence nothing to lose), and whose values are framed by dogmas of bygone age and feeling of revenge and hatred by indoctrination of selective historical injustices (How many times you have heard Christians lamenting loss of Constantinople or Jerusalem), west is apprehensive (to put it mildly).

So to put it bluntly if the crew was alarmed by the obnoxious behaviour of few Indians, it was perfectly justified in taking the actions it did.To accept west to behave as if everything is normal when it is not, is disingenuous to say the least.
This doesn't mean that knee jerk reaction is the right way, overhauling of intelligence apparatus and society can only ensure the safety of citizens.

PS It is not that only brown skinned and/or bearded people are at risk. Even "absent minded geeks who play nerdy games" are not spared. One wonders who they will target next ? Age Of Empires ! Deva, Deva [link via confused]

Monday Blues

Hypothetically, If one were to point out that the idea of a Gandhi like figure (whose ideology was anything but self-centred) to advance notion of a society based on self - interest is a contradiction in terms, what fallacy one would be committing ?

PS And no the argument that this notion (that is of someone selling the reforms) has nothing to do with end which Mahatma sought does not stand. His ends and his means justified each other.

PPS. I wonder wouldn't it be better if instead of indulging in messianism and ,one takes initiative himself. Instead of pining for Gandhi, why doesn't one become Gandhi himself?

Related Since I am talking about initiative, where is my initiative and what I have done.
Answer, nothing. I prefer comfort of my cubicle and assured salary at the month in comparison to arduous and thankless task of enlightening others (assuming I have the capacity intellect wise and communication wise, in itself a doubtful proposition). This makes me a hypocrite.

Much ado about labels

President Bush in his recent address to American public termed as "Islamic fascists", the world wide coalition of Islamic (or islamist, take your pick) terrorists engaged in bloody conflict with opponents from diverse background, including but not limited to west . [CNN link via confused]

This nomenclature has provoked a debate. Those opposing the term claim that such terms stereotype entire Muslim community. This, in my opinion is disingenuous. That the terrorists draw inspiration from a certain strain of Islam should be beyond dispute. The most frequent text cited by likes of Osama Bin Laden for why they do what they are doing is not Das Kapital or some anarchist publication but Quran. So yes the present attacks have something to do with Islam. However, here I differ from those supporting the nomenclature.

Fascists has become a convenient handle to group together any ideology which opposes democracy and freedom. While this misnomer may be allowed for discussions in usenet or blogs, it is misleading to confuse the ideology of terrorist as fascism, for there are fundamental differences between that ideology and fascism (A useful pointer, via Instapundit)

In original form fascism was not merely limited to opposition to these fundamental attributes of a liberal west. The basic premise of fascism was that existence of state had justification beyond its services and utility to citizens and individuals.
In particular, the ideology promulgated by Mussolini characterized state as a vehicle for existence and progress of civilization, [Wiki] and hence justification and extent for state has to be derived from consideration of civilization and not from mere view point of liberties of individual citizen.
To repeat, for a fascist existence of state is independent of its usefulness to individual.
Further to a fascist state and its strength is more important than the individual.
[Wiki]

Hence while suppression of liberty and democracy is one of the basic characteristics of fascism, it is not its most basic premises. This distinction is important because the ideologies which oppose democracy and freedom are not limited to fascism while having different premises.

Marxism for example is such ideology, in order to protect the proletariat from exploitation of capitalist and manipulation of bourgeoisie it advocates dictatorship of proletariat.
Socialists while not as extremists as Marxists also favour circumscribing individual liberty for "the greatest good of greatest number".

In both the cases state is not the most important but an instrument to carry out the wishes of the common mob. In principle this of course implies descent to mob rule. In practise however since human affairs tends towards order,Marxism invariably transforms into tyranny of individuals.
In a way, the strain of Islam terrorist adheres to is more similar to Marxism.
In both Marxism and Caliphate the state serves a higher purpose.In Marxism it is the common man, whereas in Caliphate it is Allah. The will of individual is secondary to will of downtrodden in former, whereas in latter it has to submit to will of Allah (as revealed by the last Prophet).
The canons are different, but the dogma is same.
[Wiki]

RIP

"Zindagi aur maut uparwale ke haath mein hai, Jahanpanah. Hum sab rangmanch ki kathputliyan hain jinki dor uparwale ki ungliyon se bandhi hui hai. Kab kaun uthega koi nahin bata sakta. Ha ha ha." [Link]

(Life and death is in hand of God, your highness. We all are puppets whose strings are controlled by a supreme power. No one knows when he will take bow )

So said Rajesh Khanna in Anand,

But Hrishikesh Mukheji was not mere puppet, he was director, the ace, the best.
Thanks Babu Moshai for all those laughs, thanks also for all those and also for all those pleasent evenings.
You will live forever in our hearts.