The One With Endorsement

This blog proudly endorses regular commentator Sriram as official dirty man of this blog.
Please keep all your daughters and donuts out of his reach.
Thank you.

Agent Of Status Quo

In middle of Sullivan-Goldberg love fest, Goldberg gives an insightful definition of conservatism.

Oakeshott was a brilliant advocate for a small-c conservatism of temperament, one that placed trust in institutions, trial-and-error, and muddling-through without iron-clad dogma.

Conscience is important, but conscience must be informed — not dictated to — by institutions, religion, tradition, and, of course, reason.

Of course it is irrelevant to India where every party including BJP aspires for some shade of socialism.

I just want to say...

Obama reminds me of change consultant *. Anyhow I think that Obama is going to be the next second black president of Amreeka.

* Yes Frogji Dilbert reference.

Update 1: Is Huckabee going to be Republican nominee ? Did Giuliani (and McCain) overplay the hand ? I don't know the answer, however rise of preacher is the stuff political lores are made up of.

Update 2: Ewww, makes me feel dirty (via). Plus, the question "who will win in a fight between The Preacher and Captain Platitude", answered (via).

Update 3: Oh Daahling ! Seems I was wrong, Change is the new black in Amreeka. To be frank I am getting sick of this, I hate change ! I say screw change, what was good for Bhagwan Rama is good for me.

Tap Dancing

Ravikiran explains Hindu rate of growth as a bad pun gone horribly wrong.

Now I knew beforehand what secular rate of growth means, basically some trend like thingy (thanks to interwebs), but it doesn't really prove anything.

For one still there is little matter of how "Hindu" is not the first word which comes to mind when one is looking for antonyms of "secular", even during the Nehruvian era. Of course it would be a different matter altogether, if Ravikiran had evidence for the usage, but somehow knowing him I doubt he has any, for this is not his usual but cartelspeak.

Also there are references galore* which indicate that Hindu rate of growth had negative connotations**, which had to do with historical western perspective of Hindus as fatalist, meek and passive. Of course he would call it paranoia of a Hindutvavadi ***(that is moi), I could have asked him to verify with JK or Mr Dey, only thing I suspect for Ravi both JK and Mr Dey would be Hindutvavadis. Of course for Ravi googling is probably a back breaking task.

Ultimately it comes to this, Ravi has nothing to support his conjecture that Raj Krishna was a poor misunderstool soul who was just having, you know, a bit of fun, but somehow not only he was incompetent enough to not find the correct antonym (which is communal or probably sectarian, for those who didn't study in KV ), but also unfortunate enough to tap into a well established negative stereotype of Hindus for his little joke.

Hmmm, I don't know, but to me it smell like ...... Crap ??

Now reverse the situation, can you imagine how he would have acted if someone else, suppose Shivam or Big Boob was doing this tap dance, how Ravi would have responded ? I don't think there is any need to imagine. So it is seen that Ravi is doing the spinning, but it is us Hindutvavadis who are conspiracy theorists. Well what can I say, Ravi is an honorable man.

Dear Ravi, what gives ?

PS When one gets dizzy from the spinning, one starts vomiting snarks with no point.

PPS . Of course to keep things in perspective, he has said in the past that Raj followed free trade Well ! To paraphrase what Nietzsche said about Christians, in cartelian creed, ideology never came into contact with history at any point.

PPPS This post explain my fundamental distrust of "Indian" libertarians, they are basically intelligent and articulate guys, but they are enslaved to the dogma. And just to clarify I wouldn't have written this if it were His Eminence or Desi John Galt who were being snarky, they are hopeless cases, I expect better from Ravi than this drivel.

* Speaking of galore, which is the best bond movie ever. I am going to download it.

** Of course there is a simple explanation wiki has been hijacked by Hindutvavadis. And yet it is us who are paranoid, not Ravi. Projection anyone ? By the way how come Indian embassy in Russia is also peddling this great Hindutvavadi deception ? O overlord you magnificent bastard person of unknown parentage !

*** Properly speaking I think we should differentiate between "Hindutva" and "hindutva", former being the ideology proposed by Veer Savarkar. I have not read Savarkar, so I really don't know whether I am Hindutvavaadi or not.

My New Year Resolution

1. I am going to punch idiots who squeeze my arms, seriously stop doing it now, it is inexcusably gay.

2. I am going to punch idiots who whine about kids. Look I can understand your suffering, but do you really have to make others suffer by your vomiting.

3. I am going to punch idiots who use smilies in political discussion. Seriously what's wrong with them !

I already feel better.

It's not personal

It is somewhat of a mystery to me, why exactly are we (we as in we Indians) supposed to grieve for Benazir Bhutto because, not to sound insensitive or anything, that woman was complicit in killing thousands of Indians. Oh, I suppose it is natural to have a tinge of sympathy, but seriously my sympathy is limited and I will rather spend it on some one who is more deserving. For instance people with no prospect of job.
This is not to say of course that people should gloat, for the simple reason that gloating is just distracting. The problem that Pakistan poses goes beyond what Bhutto did or did not do.
Let's keep the focus folks !

PS. Arnab, Ashok Malik

Revisiting Modi - II

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The question of demagoguery is more tricky but also one which is more crucial to any future prospect of cultural nationalism than political alliances. To simplify things there are two defining characteristics of any movement.

First is the mass mobilization, second is the intellectual framework. Now the problem is masses respond to passion, not cold dissection. Intellectualism, on the other hand, demands the exact opposite. Again while success of revolution is dependent on masses, its endurance is dependent on the strength of intellectual framework. It is the presence of these inherently contradictory forces that makes success of revolution difficult and historically rare.

A revolution led by passionate masses would succeed in overthrowing the status quo, but if it is not guided and informed by the intellect, it ends up devouring its own children.*
On the other hand, insistence on existence of a intellectual framework, which is grounded in nothing except pure reason with no connection to social aspirations, as a pre-condition for revolution, would eventually result in endless intellectual self pleasure, or as Bengalis fondly call Addabaazi (or as kgpians fondly call it fornicating buckets), but no action on ground.

This would imply that for any group or faction which wishes a revolution followed by a stable (and desirable) condition, there is a need to couple rhetoric with logic, to temper passion with reason, and to reinforce reason with passion.

Which brings us to cultural nationalism as represented by Sangh Parivar. Speaking as someone who has nothing but distaste for the fraud that goes under the guise of secularism **, I have no doubt that Sangh Parivar can not be compared with secular charlatans. However when it comes to carry out a sustained movement towards cultural nationalism, its record has been abysmal.This is due to absence of intellectual to support the mass mobilization, this absence of course is just a specific instance of poverty of ideas from which India suffers.

In a way the reason behind emergence of Sangh Parivar as second pole after decades of existence as marginal player is disaffection of middle class (across India) with the secular, liberal establishment which has thrived by trapping middle class in a guilt zone. Now this constituency, hardly a majority, is the core of BJP, which is augmented by local coalitions based upon caste and other factors. However to make this arrangement enduring the core must be reinforced with a sound philosophy which guides and informs the politics. This sadly has not happened. Instead it is either crass populism (vox populi vox dei) or tired rhetoric from heydays of socialism which has come to represent the platform, to some extent there was a support of economic liberalization, however defeat in 2004*** killed that. Its authenticity on Hindutva was of course lost, perhaps forever, with attempts to gain respectability with secular, liberal establishment.

At risk of being dramatic I think Sangh Parivar is at crossroads. One way is to continue doing what it has been doing so far, in my opinion this leads to end of BJP as a political force which would spell doom for cultural nationalism and along with it end of India as a nation-state****.
Other is to work towards building an intellectual movement on an urgent basis which would counter the existing stranglehold of Hinduphobic dhimmis.
Now Narendra Modi is a demagogue, his expertise is in polemics. True he has come out in flying colors as far as administration is concerned (as opposed the embarrassment called Uma Bharathi), but ceding further ground to what is in effect raging passion of the mob would just further undermine the cause.

To build an intellectual base is not going to be an easy task. The path is enveloped with fog of pretend enlightenment, but this fog must be pierced if any progress is to be made. As John F Kennedy said in a different context, this is a twilight struggle.

* French revolution, Burke was right.

** No it's not pseudo-secularism, it is secularism, which is the culprit.

*** Of course it was to be blamed on hubris, that a comfort of being in power. Ironically Jan Sangh used to be pretty pro capitalism kind of party.

**** Those who believe in nothing, will fall for anything.