Western UP is burning because of caste-related violence against the Dalit communities, but this third rate clown Adityanath has been celebrating the birthday of 16th-century Rajput warrior king Maharana Pratap.  Elsewhere, in the same state, a group of predatory boys manhandles and molest two girls, and this absolutely loathsome creep and a member of the opposition party, Azam Khan says that young women should be kept indoors most of the times!  Actually, I am not surprised.  Both Adityanath and Azam Khan complement each other, in fact, they feed off each other in order to provide fuel to fire their reactionary agenda.

Even 53 years after his death, it is still fashionable in a large section of the middle classes in India to abuse and crucify our first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru for all the ills afflicting the Republic of India.  In their incoherent and unfocused anger, people lose all kinds of perspective.  They don’t appreciate the fact that if India today feels like an oasis of calm amidst the arid landscape of general chaos and disorder of South Asia, a major part of the credit must go to Mr. Nehru.  Because he believed in his heart of heart, that whatever shapes the newly independent nation may take, it will never be the mirror image of Pakistan.  Even his most uncompromising critics would have to concede that history has proved him more right than wrong.  We have seen what happens in the creation of Bangladesh and the horrible civil war in Sri Lanka; the terrible consequences of imposing a majoritarian culture on a diverse population.  Our first prime minister was nothing if not a true democrat.  He never shied away from engaging with his political opponents, both inside and outside parliament, on every issue of national importance.  Today, if we have acquired even a modicum of scientific and technological achievement to our credit, it was only thanks to Nehru’s untiring zeal and passion in nurturing the institutions and backing the scientific community.

   Of course, I would be remiss in my assessment if I don’t say that he also made some errors of judgment along the way.  But then, what human being is immune to making mistakes?  The thing about hindsight is that it gives us 20/20 vision.  His too much faith in the command economy which ended up creating state monopoly in every walk of life.  His inability to reform the personal laws of the Muslim community like he was able to do in the case of the Hindus.  His romantic but naïve belief in the brotherhood of India and China.  His spectacular miscalculations on Kashmir.  These are some that come to mind.  We cannot pass a definitive judgment of why he did what he did because we were not there.  We simply cannot compare the current situation in the country with what was the state of play in the early years of independence.  It can be said without reservations that Nehru laid the foundation of a modern, open and secular India.  If the current political discourse in India is characterized by crassness, vulgarity, and cruelty, we cannot hold Nehru accountable.  Pt. Nehru didn’t introduce dynasty and nepotism in Indian public life.  His daughter Indira did, that too after he was gone.  When he was incarcerated for nearly three years by the British in the wake of the Quit India movement; in the prison he requested the authorities for some loose sheaf of papers and pen, and then went on to write ‘Discovery of India’, one of the most definitive works on the much devalued, not to mention much-discredited term nowadays, the ‘idea of India’.  Nehru was a statesman and not merely a politician.  He didn’t just think about the next election, but also about the next generation.  He was a true internationalist and an intellectual prime minister.  Of course, he did not get everything right.  But then who ever did?  In the ultimate analysis, he got more thing right than he got wrong, and that should be good enough.  Once, he said that as long as he is alive, he will not allow India to become a Hindu Pakistan.  And thank God for that!

Following is a list of my 10 favorite Indians whom I greatly admire and respect.  This list is my no means exhaustive, and because I was pretty sure that it would contain not more than 10 people, I had to omit some worthy contender.  My one and only criterion were that those people should be picking and choosing their battles residing in India and not in some fancy city in the West.  I owe a debt of gratitude to them for I have benefited immensely from their knowledge and wisdom over the years.  So, here goes, in no particular order...
1. Mukul Kesvan  2. Arundhati Roy  3. Ramchandra Guha  4. Pratap Bhanu Mehta  5. Asish Nandy  6. Shiv Vishvanathan  7. Aparna Sen  8. Arun Shourie  9. Shashi Tharoor  10. Yogendra Yadav

I am quite amused that this joker Paresh Rawal decided to go after Arundhati Roy via a disgusting tweet.  It's been years since she has written any polemics that would shake the very foundation of our Republic, according to the so-called ''nationalists''.  She hasn't made any comments about our Supreme Leader (you know who) in recent times.  She has been quietly working on her second novel in 20 years, that is going to come out in 15 days in more than 30 languages around the world.  If despite all this, Ms. Roy continues to weigh heavily on the minds of so many 'bhakts' like him, it just goes to show how powerful the pen is compared to the sword.  It is also in a way, a backhanded tribute to the majestic and mesmerizing craft of her writing.
PS  By the way, Roy is not on twitter, so trolls will only be wasting their time.

#128

Come Friday and prime minister Modi will complete three years in office.  To me, the most astounding and depressing aspect of all this is that in these three years, he has not given a single press conference.  In every liberal democracy, the head of the government subjects himself or herself to the difficult scrutiny by the members of the media from time to time.  But not Mr. Narendra Modi, who of course, likes to do the so called ''Mann Ki Baat'', that boring monologue, full of tired old cliches and platitudes, where only he can control the narrative.  Even someone like Mr. Vladimir Putin, who is not the most shining example of a democrat, addresses the members of the press once in a year around Christmas.  I want to know, what is the Prime Minister afraid of?  I can assure him that nobody is going to ask him about Gujarat 2002!  Over the years, we have seen how that has gone.  As it is, the government has already emasculated or at the very least, coopted a major chunk of the mainstream media.  So, there is no danger of Times of India doing to Mr. Modi what the Washington Post and the New York Times have been doing to Donald Trump.  Essencially, speaking truth to power.  On the other hand, a large section of the press and news networks over here have no compunction eating out of the establishment's hand.  The only reason I suspect is that contrary what we have been made to believe, Mr. Modi is actually quite risk-averse and cautious in his overall approach.  And if he's giving the media the opportunity to ask some questions, there might be a few surprises coming his way and I don't think he likes surprises.  He always wants to be in control of everything.

I was reading the New York Times editorial and was laughing like crazy.  The GOP is alarmed, the democrats are aghast, the late-night comedians are having a field day and the public is simply flabbergasted.  Thank you, Mr. President, for providing everybody such a theater that is going to put any Broadway show to shame.  And last but by no means least, thank God for Sean Spicer.  What a manna from heaven he is!  He has been single handed responsible giving superstardom to Melissa Mcarthy.  Without Sean, life would have been truly miserable.  Jokes apart, I have to take my proverbial hats off to the established American media for speaking truth to power and not getting intimidated one bit.  It is an object lesson for the Indian media how to conduct itself with credibility.  Most of which is quite happy to eat out of the government's hand.

President Trump is clearly losing the plot if he's not lost it already.  Even someone like me sitting here in India, who is not materially affected by what he's been doing or how he is conducting himself in the office; I am getting increasingly exasperated and infuriated.  He has been for just over three months, but somehow it feels a lot longer.  Mr. Trump has lied, deceived and obfuscated on so many things so much and for so long that his continuance in such a prestigious office is becoming untenable.  I don't want to even go into the extraordinary removal of the FBI director James Comey, for that would require another write-up altogether.  The other day, I was watching an interview that Donald Trump gave to the BBC in 1998, and believe it or not, he sounded very earnest and convincing in whatever he was saying although that air someone used to getting his way was always there.  A lot of people far more knowledgeable and intelligent than me have analyzed and written about Mr. Trump in recent months, so I can hardly add anything substantive.  I would just like to say that the man carries an enormous chip on his shoulder.  Any decision that he makes, it's more out of spite than any conviction.  Every morning, he unleashes barrages of tweets and people are supposed to take it as Gospel truth.  His undisguised contempt for the traditional media is never a good sign for any democracy.  There are very few competent people in his administration because he likes to surround himself with only yes men.  I could go on and on, but that would be missing the point.  I think the passage of years has not added to the wisdom of Mr. Trump, which comes from experience.  Rather it has worked in the opposite direction, making him ever more surly, petulant and infantile.  More is the pity.

Not many people realize, but the 9th of May has to be a red-letter day in the annals of women's emancipation. For it was on this day in 1960 that FDA (Food and Drug Administration) in the U.S. finally gave its stamp of approval to the use of birth control pill by the across the country. This singular act, to my mind, contributed most to the feminist movement and women's empowerment in general than any amount of sloganeering, marching and bra burning could ever have done. Suddenly, women not only in the United States but all around the world had a sense of autonomy over their own bodies. They were in the position to decide when to have children and how many. Because now, they could have sex without fear of getting pregnant, it also paved the way for the sexual revolution of the 70s. The world is a better place because of that.

The people of India are relieved, and rightly so, after those men who committed the brutal gang rape and murder of a 23 years old Joyti Singh on the night of 16th December 2012, have been brought to justice and will be sent to the gallows after going through the due process of law and fair trial.  This was the incident that really shook the conscience of society and literally brought hundreds and thousands of ordinary middle-class people on the streets like nothing could have.  Even those people who are opposed to the death penalty as a matter of principle (myself included), would be hard pressed to say that this sentence is not going to bring closure to her family, who have had to undergo such a horrid nightmare.  The punishment definitely fits the crime, as long as capital punishment is there on the statute book, those animals deserved no less.
   In a remarkable coincidence, another court verdict was delivered in another ghastly gang rape and murder case around the same time.  Bilkis Bano was a 19 years old mother of a 3-year-old girl, she was also 20 weeks pregnant with another child.  On that fateful day in February 2002, Bilkis Bano was running for her life along with other members of her extended family.  A rampaging Hindu mob was pursuing them as part of a systematic anti-Muslim pogrom at that time in Gujarat.  How far could she run, where could she hide?  Immediately, she's seized upon by the frenzied mob and brutally gang raped thereby killing her unborn child.  As though that was not barbaric enough, they also picked up her three years old daughter and smashed the little girl on a nearby boulder.  The blood lust didn't end there, they also killed 14 members of her immediate and extended family.
   After meandering through the Indian judicial system for 15 years, the Bombay High Court convicted those responsible for the carnage, which also included six policemen.  You can imagine the magnitude of the crime.  My contention is if the rapists and killers of Joyti Singh could be handed down the death sentence, considering the shocking brutality exhibited, what prevented the court in the Bilkis Bano case from giving similar punishment to those convicted?  Instead, they have been awarded life imprisonment.  The only difference is that Bilkis has lived to tell the tale and Joyti did not.  There were no mitigating circumstances in either case, but different yardsticks have been applied in meting out the punishment.

It's really mind-boggling how callous and insensitive the Trump administration can get.  By making a determined assault to repeal and replace the Obamacare, it is not only going to deny health insurance to millions but also hurt the same working class white voters in the industrial rust-belt, who were instrumental in propelling him to the White House in the first place.  Just because it was a signature piece of legislation by President Obama, it had to go, never mind the consequences.  Talk about cutting your nose to spite your face.  

I don't want to use the Biblical analogy of Original Sin.  But in the wake of the mounting tension between India and Pakistan, I can't help feeling that the Vajpayee government committed a grave mistake in going for the nuclear tests in 1998.  Not only did it give the Pakistanis the excuses to go for their own tests, it also neutralized whatever conventional military superiority we had over that country.  Now, this whole equation between India and Pakistan has been frozen in perpetuity under the overhang of the mushroom cloud and MAD (mutually assured destruction) doctrine.  If India goes after the terrorist camps inside the Pakistani territory with any degree of substance, Pakistan is going to see this as an existential threat to itself and there is no telling how they are gonna react.  Realistically, India has got very little room to maneuver.

Today is world press freedom day. India ranks 136 on the press freedom index, only marginally better than Pakistan which is at 139th place. This is utterly disgraceful for a country that likes to shout from the rooftop about its democratic credentials. So, it's quite hypocritical when the Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi wax eloquent on the necessity of a free and vibrant press, when he himself has never given any press conference in the three years he's been the prime minister of this country. He has never allowed himself to be subjected to the kind of hard questioning by the media which is fairly common in other advanced democracies in the world.

If anyone wants to see what free speech looks like, just watch the video of Hasan Minhaj, a Muslim Indian-American stand-up comic roasting President Trump at the White House correspondents dinner two days ago.  Imagine if anyone and God forbid if that person also happens to be Muslim, trying anything similar to the supreme leader Modi here in public.  He or she would be slapped with the charge of sedition, called 'anti-national' not to mention a Paki-sympathizer.  His life would have been turned upside down.  But over there, everybody had a jolly good laugh at the expense of the President, who was conspicuous by his absence.  Say what you will about the U.S., but that country still values freedom of expression like few places can.