Media Mullahs

In an interesting oped titled ‘Messianism versus democracy’ in The Hindu this is what Prabhat Patnaik had to say: “Maulana Bhashani, a popular peasant leader in what is now Bangladesh, used to give marathon speeches that were interrupted when people went home for lunch or dinner, or even for a night's rest, and resumed when they re-assembled afterwards; and the speeches contained much information about everything…”

Here’s another excerpt from the article: “Messianism substitutes the collective subject, the people, by an individual subject, the messiah. The people may participate in large numbers, and with great enthusiasm and support, in the activities undertaken by the messiah… but they do so as spectators. The action is of the messiah; the people are only enthusiastic and partisan supporters and cheerleaders. If at all they ever undertake any action on the side, this is entirely at the messiah's bidding, its ethics, rationale and legitimacy never explained to them…” Well, I don’t agree with quite a few parts in the article but this post is not to debate that. Patnaik probably has inadvertently described religious following itself. The para I quoted can be used for Jesus Christ, Prophet Mohammad, Moses or any other prophet you can think of. Imagine if prophets from centuries ago had 24X7 media in their time.

Till the time a messiah from the general public, as Patnaik sort of describes Anna Hazare, comes around the role is usually played by those hyper media celebrity anchors and hosts. Each one passionately intent on heaping some agenda on viewers and readers. Desperately agitated and tired with the twittering and twattering of people on the social networks criticising her, one prominent media cacofonix called them ‘Internet Hindus’! If Maulana Bhashani’s marathon speech is an indicator our media celebrity speakers would have to be called the ‘Media Mullahs’.

If Prabhat Patnaik does a casual count of the number of followers our Media Mullahs have on their twitter accounts he will find them outnumbering those out on the streets supporting Anna Hazare. Secondly, to those who dismiss the crowds as not representing all of India one must point out that if social scientologists like Yogendra Yadav can make conclusions for the nation on sample populations of 20000 then the population sample of Anna is far more superior and far more reliable where accuracy is concerned. But in the crowds in the media are also those whose criticism of Anna’s effort is based on sloganeering and not completely on facts. Is everything in Anna’s protest fair? Obviously not. You are unlikely to find any mass movement in history where you are likely to find every part being fair and logical. This is simply because the end objective of mass movements are their stated objectives and that is that. Sometimes even unstated objectives like the partition of India are achieved/conceded. We don't exactly hang our earlier messiah, Mahatma Gandhi, for that.

Some innocent tweets wondered why Barkha Dutt wouldn’t go to Ramlilamaidan to cover the protests when she considered it so important to rush to Egypt and Libya. The reasons for her not doing so is pretty obvious to people who have followed her reporting over the years. But taking the cue the other media mullahs rushed to Ramlila. Rajdeep Sardesai went to meet Anna and even had a photo op. Rahul Kanwal of Headlines Today is reporting live from Ramlila today. After his return from Ramlila, Mullah Sardesai’s pattern of discourse has substantially changed. You can expect a similar change in Mullah Kanwal’s approach. The media mullahs may also have to slowly admit that the battering they receive from Internet Hindus is not entirely unjust or misplaced.

What does it say about our media mullahs when they invite those who trash people or protests with absolutely no logic at all? Mahesh Bhatt calls the Anna movement Taliban. Does that make sense? Yet he figures prominently on NDTV and CNN-IBN. Nikhi Wagle of the CNN-IBN group also tweets of religious bias and questions secularism of the protests. Since when was secularism the agenda of the protests in any case? Since when was a religious tone or bias the agenda of the protests? But both Bhatt and Wagle would like to tweak facts brazenly to lend some insidious motive to the event. And where Arnab Goswami is concerned, he is already a convert and is doing a non-stop coverage of the event.

What Prabhat Patnaik misses is that when the protest eventually winds up the only messiahs left continuing the messianism will be our Media Mullahs. They may just have to alter their agendas a bit.

Why Don't They Ask Suzy?

The PM keeps repeating his statement ‘govt has no magic wand against corruption’. Well, why don’t they ask Suzy? Suzanne Arundhati Roy is a single-window system for all your problems. In a post titled India’s worst journalists I had stated: “She is India's only global journalist. Be it a politician, a minister, head of state, saints, print journals, tv channels, everyone relies on her to deliver considered and scientific opinion on everything. And she never fails. Be it literature, nuclear threats, dams, environment, maoists, naxalites, mining, rocket science, environmental problems on the moon and mars, saving martians from pollution. She knows everything!” But we will come back to Roy a bit later.

While there is a huge support for Anna’s anti-corruption movement there are also a good number who criticise him for undemocratic ways adopted by him. It’s hardly possible to have a mass movement without its critics. Some of them are quite fair in their criticism but some are extending the Manish Tiwari line of dialogue, with a bit more sophistry though.

Sample some excerpts from this one from C.P. Bhambhri in a piece called ‘Spreading Canards….’ From The Pioneer:

A democratic system of governance cannot survive or, for that matter, thrive if people are conditioned in believing that every ‘elected representative’ is corrupt and misuses his power to appropriate public resources………Historical evidence clearly shows that democracy can be subverted and sabotaged by anti-democratic military Generals or fascist and Nazis like Hitler of Germany or Mussolini of Italy or General Franco of Spain or near home General Ayub Khan of Pakistan if the ‘public mood’ turns against electoral process which is projected as villain of the piece because democracy is labeled as a breeding ground for corruption.

First of all, I am yet to hear anyone, I repeat anyone, even remotely saying that every elected politician is corrupt. No, not even Anna Hazare says that. If there is anger against politicians as a community it still doesn’t imply that all politicians are corrupt or misuse power. It is fair, though, to believe that a majority do misuse power in some way or the other. The ‘maoists and anarchists’ comment by Manish Tiwari is still fresh but here is someone just putting it differently with subtlety by invoking Mussolini, Franco, Hitler and Ayub Khan. So the canard is now flowing both ways. Democracy was never meant to be a breeding ground for corruption, Mr. Bhambri! Unchecked power and greed are breeding grounds for corruption. If those in the ruling class can’t find the conscience to fight corruption, people will have to defy parliament. We are still lucky that unlike the Mideast people haven’t pulled out guns and swords. So Bhambri’s imaginary threat to democracy is as much a canard that he accuses the protesters of spreading.

Anna Hazare is leading an anti-corruption movement that has a fascist overtone because even Parliament, which represents political diversity of India, is being commanded to accept the so-called Jan Lokpal Bill drafted by Team Anna. Parliament is the pillar of Indian democracy and every Bill gets democratic approval or rejection on the floor of both the Houses of Parliament….The demand to ‘accept’ their Bill or ‘face’ public anger which is manipulated by undertaking emotive steps like ‘fast-unto-death’ is not justifiable……It is bizarre, to say the least, that Anna Hazare is adopting coercive methods to achieve his goal. He is challenging the constitutional and legal rights of elected representatives to perform their legitimate functions.

There is definitely truth in stating Anna Hazare is pushing Parliament a bit too far by forcing the JLP and imposing deadlines. As bargaining chips protesters throw up the weirdest demands. But really, he has only half the blame to share. If the govt itself constituted a joint team to draft the Lokpal bill, then the right thing to do would be to present a bill that is drafted through consensus. They could have taken longer to reach that consensus. Playing tricks on the civil group and presenting a unilaterally drafted bill is bound to force such agitations, especially after the extreme step of arresting Anna, lathi-charging protesters earlier and displaying extra-ordinary arrogance. Very few people in print or TV are actually discussing the merits of both bills or the many versions of bills that are floating but instead focused on which side will blink first. This is the Bhambri version of Anna’s fascist approach. Parliament and government deserve to be respected. But the moment the government becomes arrogant, extremely corrupt and intolerant, it is the duty of citizens not to tolerate the intolerant and corrupt. Throwing out a corrupt and intolerant government is not the same as throwing out democracy. We have seen state and central governments thrown out before on many different issues. All this ‘holiness’ about parliament can only go so far!

There are reports today that around 26 MLAs from Andhra have quit over the CBI raids on Jagan Reddy. Why is it that these raids are happening only now? Was the Congress totally unaware of the corrupt YSR Reddy government? This is hardly the behaviour of a government that people should tolerate. There are lines that shouldn’t be crossed in a democracy. But it’s usually the government and politicians that cross those lines first. Helpless citizens keep watching endlessly. Someday, the protests were bound to get threatening. It is not people who started the Franco and Hitler trend. In this case it is the government that started it and will now have to pay the price for it.

That brings us back to sister Suzy. She says ‘I am not Anna’ in an article in The Hindu. Thank God for small mercies. Frankly, you wouldn’t mistake her or her ideology for Anna even if you met her under a nuclear mushroom glow. She calls the whole JLP draconian. In the whole rant against Anna Hazare and the JLP she does not provide one single clause in the JLP that she finds draconian. She does not challenge anything in the JLP. The entire exercise is to merely poke holes into the character of Anna. The strange part about such lunatics is that they believe that anyone who stands up and fights for a cause should also fight for causes that are dear to their critics. Where does such sick thinking come from? Only from sick minds like Arundhati! So here is the sample from her article which should tell you everything that Anna isn’t:

Who is he really, this new saint, this Voice of the People? Oddly enough we've heard him say nothing about things of urgent concern. Nothing about the farmer's suicides in his neighbourhood, or about Operation Green Hunt further away. Nothing about Singur, Nandigram, Lalgarh, nothing about Posco, about farmer's agitations or the blight of SEZs. He doesn't seem to have a view about the Government's plans to deploy the Indian Army in the forests of Central India.

Well, to be honest, not everyone is as bright as Suzy to be knowledgeable about every single problem that confronts us. I sometimes wonder why the PM doesn’t talk to her. Is there any problem on earth or the universe that Suzy can’t solve? Because he didn’t talk about Nandigram he shouldn’t talk about corruption! Because he didn’t talk about Posco he shouldn’t protest about corruption! Because he didn’t talk about Singur he shouldn’t talk about anything! If you observe carefully there is only a thin line dividing the Bhambris and the Suzies. If the PM cannot find a magic wand why don’t they talk to Suzy! Anna’s ‘emotional blackmail’, as some people call it, can always be matched by Suzy’s emotional nonsense!

Poll Pranks

The recent poll by CNN-IBN, presented by The Hindu and conducted by CSDS, led by Yogendra Yadav, puts Rahul Gandhi as the most popular choice as Prime Minister at 19% vote by the population sample and 42% of the UPA sample. (If I missed out anyone involved in the exercise please remind me!) Hang on though, we’ll get to that poll in a few minutes.

First, let’s have some fun. In an episode from the 80s TV series ‘Yes Prime Minister’, Jim Hacker, PM, wants to announce a ‘grand design’ by cancelling introduction of the Trident nuclear missiles and reintroducing conscription (national service). Sir Humphrey, his permanent Dept. Secretary doesn’t want him to make such an announcement and has to turn the cabinet ministers’ opinion against the decision. What follows is an interesting poll exercise between Humphrey and the PM’s assistant, Bernard Woolley. Here are some random and edited excerpts (in blue):

Plot: Jim Hacker has just returned from his visit to the American President in Washington. While the PM is suffering from jet-lag (in other words: sleeping), Bernard Woolley is briefed by Sir Humphrey to stop the PM from announcing his Grand Design (canceling Trident and reintroducing conscription) in his first television broadcast. Jim Hacker sounds out General Howard about canceling Trident. The General is in favour because Britain does not need it. When the General later learns from Sir Humphrey that canceling Trident also would mean a reintroduction of conscription, his opinion about canceling Trident changes immediately.

Bernard goes to see Sir Humphrey and tells him that Hacker is planning to announce his Grand Design in the broadcast. The PM thinks it will be a vote-winner because a Party poll has shown that 64% of the population are in favour of reintroducing conscription. Sir Humphrey advises Bernard to issue another poll to show the majority of the population is against reintroducing conscription. Bernard wonders how this can be done and Sir Humphrey explains it. Sir Humphrey will make sure all the Permanent Secretaries will brief their Ministers to oppose the Grand Design.

After the Cabinet meeting where the Grand Design is discussed Jim Hacker is rather puzzled by the outcome. All his Cabinet colleagues who were previously in favour of it, now all seemed against it. The Foreign Secretary was talking about how it could look as appeasing the Soviets. The Defence Secretary was saying that Britain should have the best and Trident is the best. And the Employment Secretary was raving about how conscription will let an army of trained killers loose on the streets.

Sir Humphrey advises Hacker not to announce his Grand Design in the television broadcast. Bernard gives Hacker the results of the latest poll that shows that 73% of the population are against conscription. Hacker now thinks it is best not to refer to the Grand Design in the speech.

The discussion here between Humphrey and Bernard is a good example of how poll pranks are played out:

Humphrey: "You know what happens: nice young lady comes up to you. Obviously you want to create a good impression, you don't want to look a fool, do you? So she starts asking you some questions: Mr. Woolley, are you worried about the number of young people without jobs?"

Bernard: "Yes"

Humphrey: "Are you worried about the rise in crime among teenagers?"

Bernard: "Yes"

Humphrey: "Do you think there is a lack of discipline in our Comprehensive schools?"

Bernard: "Yes"

Humphrey: "Do you think young people welcome some authority and leadership in their lives?"

Bernard: "Yes"

Humphrey: "Do you think they respond to a challenge?"

Bernard: "Yes"

Humphrey: "Would you be in favour of reintroducing National Service?"

Bernard: "Oh...well, I suppose I might be."

Humphrey: "Yes or no?"

Bernard: "Yes"

Humphrey: "Of course you would, Bernard. After all you told you can't say no to that. So they don't mention the first five questions and they publish the last one."

Bernard: "Is that really what they do?"

Humphrey: "Well, not the reputable ones no, but there aren't many of those. So alternatively the young lady can get the opposite result."

Bernard: "How?"

Humphrey: "Mr. Woolley, are you worried about the danger of war?"

Bernard: "Yes"

Humphrey: "Are you worried about the growth of armaments?"

Bernard: "Yes"

Humphrey: "Do you think there is a danger in giving young people guns and teaching them how to kill?"

Bernard: "Yes"

Humphrey: "Do you think it is wrong to force people to take up arms against their will?"

Bernard: "Yes"

Humphrey: "Would you oppose the reintroduction of National Service?"

Bernard: "Yes"

Humphrey: "There you are, you see Bernard. The perfect balanced sample."

So, you see, just as Sir Humphrey’s questions are motivated by his own policy beliefs most opinion polls in India have similar motivation. Now you will be explained the methodology and how scientific it was and all that. That doesn’t mean the questionnaire used for the ballot itself was scientific. Did you get to see the questionnaire? I did not and then there are direct discussions with respondents that can be safely left to your imagination.

Opinion polls not only need to provide options but also need to take into account realistic probabilities of someone being a real candidate for say, the prime-minister post. By what logic does the survey consider A.B. Vajpayee to be a candidate? The man has retired from politics, has decided not to contest elections again and yet he is an option. This is tom-foolery at its best. In a lesser way L.K. Advani also falls into the same category. I doubt he is considered  a PM candidate even by the BJP or NDA.  In contrast Nitish Kumar, after his great victory last year in Bihar was being touted as a PM candidate by CNN-IBN, is missing from the list. Was he there on the list and did he poll zero votes? If there is some stupid logic in Vajpayee being on the list then I am quite certain even Amitabh Bachchan or Rajnikanth would have polled some votes if they were included. So just like in real elections some candidates are put up just to divide votes, maybe ABV and LKA might be those candidates in this particular poll. Very clever. Now I wonder what the questionnaire actually contained.

Then, having concluded Rahul Gandhi is going to be the most popular choice for PM (whether by secret ballot or just verbal interaction is not clear now) there are other questions kept ready for the respondents. You will find them in pic 2 and 3. Is he trustworthy and pro-poor? What one thought of his Bhatta-Parsaul adventure and even if he is ready and should become PM straightaway. Okay, but when it comes to a poll for candidates from within the BJP itself there is no Advani. So now we should be convinced that LKA is not a preferred candidate within the BJP itself but according to the pollsters is good enough to be a candidate for popular vote by the general public respondents.

Now, if they had these questions about Rahul Gandhi ready for the respondents what about similar questions about other candidates? Nothing? It would be really interesting to see the pro-poor or trustworthy votes for at least one more candidate from the list. If not, I doubt the pollsters even measured all the candidates on the same parameters in the poll.

So all of us Bernards can now see how the perfect balanced population sample was used, with the best questionnaire and with the best and realistic options for PM candidate. Why go through all this painful trouble? CNN-IBN and CSDS should just listen to Digvijay Singh! He declares Rahul Gandhi PM almost every fortnight, doesn’t he? We could have been saved the pranks.

The Hindu's Hindutva Delusion

(Note: I'd recommend first reading my previous post "Rivers of blood" in case you already haven't)

Travis Bickle is a ticking time bomb. He is a fictional character and for all purposes walks around like every other normal person. You would find it hard to find something unpleasant or unusual about him. Yet, somewhere in the recesses of his mind he wants to lash out at society, kill a presidential candidate and slaughter all the pimps and scumbags in his city. He even inspired John Hinckley’s real life attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan. Let’s blame Martin Scorsese?

Mark David Chapmanwalked around with ‘Catcher in the Rhye’ by J.D. Salinger. He was quite obsessed with that book which talked about phoneys in society. The book has 26 chapters. Chapman wasn’t satisfied that there was no murder or proper justice in the end and that there should have been a chapter 27. He writes the 27^th chapter by shooting and killing John Lennon. Let’s blame J.D. Salinger?

That’s not all even CharlesManson found secret messages in the Beatlessong “Helter Skelter” and was also inspired by the Bible for his killing spree. Let’s blame the Bible and the Beatles? Closer home, India’s greatest serial killer, Raman Raghav had every belief and governments to blame for his lunacy.

The latest to join the list of deranged men who found motivation in various writings is Anders Breivik. The Norwegian man who carried out blasts and shot and killed over 90 of his fellow citizens, many of them children. He’s written a manifesto and claims to have been inspired by many. Among his inspirations is India’s Hindutva. This is where the likes of Praveen Swamidelight in veiled warnings about Hindutva and hold out prophecies of doom. Swami is the associate editor of The Hindu and this is what he wrote in his article:

“For India, there are several important lessons. Like's Europe's mainstream right-wing parties, the BJP has condemned the terrorism of the right — but not the thought system which drives it. Its refusal to engage in serious introspection, or even to unequivocally condemn Hindutva violence, has been nothing short of disgraceful. Liberal parties, including the Congress, have been equally evasive in their critique of both Hindutva and Islamist terrorism.

Besieged as India is by multiple fundamentalisms, in the throes of a social crisis that runs far deeper than in Europe, with institutions far weaker, it must reflect carefully on Mr. Brevik's story — or run real risks to its survival.”

In a follow-up article Praveen Swami quotes Breivik’s references to the UPA’s appeasement of muslims in India and the possible attempt to destroy Hindu culture itself. I have reproduced the ‘Rivers of blood’ speech of Enoch Powell in my previous post. It wouldn’t be untrue to state that many governments in Europe, particularly Britain, have followed an extremely mindless vote-bank policy that has swamped their societies with immigrants unwilling to integrate into their societies. In particular, there has been rising and widespread anger against muslim immigrants, especially those from the Indian subcontinent, who have campaigned against everything that these European democracies value. From special rights for their community to Islamic Sharia law they have demanded everything and even gotten quite a bit of it. Some have gone to the extent of campaigning for and demanding Islamic law in some of these countries. Britain would be a good example of such campaigns.

My attempt is not to hang Praveen Swami. He is otherwise a good writer and commentator. I just believe it is outrageous to even read or make sense of a deranged individual’s motives for such acts. He is “God’s lonely man” and in his sick mind will seek to find sources and inspiration that will confirm his convictions. But democracies across the world, particularly India, must realise once and for all that all their citizens need to come under the bracket of “equality”. Policies and practices which consistently seek to create divisions in society will inspire even more dangerous lunatics. This is not to suggest that there will be no such lunatics but governments need not seek to inspire them.

The leftist-media, Praveen Swami included, likes to talk about right and left wing and liberal and centrist. This is the mumbo-jumbo behind which truth is brushed aside and facts glossed over. It has to take an extreme lunatic to even vaguely term the Congress party “liberal”. How exactly is the Congress party liberal? I doubt Swami or any of the media commentators can explain that. Since independence (maybe from even before) the Congress has been nothing but an extension of the communists. I would even dare any of these media liberals to clearly define and explain what exactly the Congress ideology is. I guess it’s the same “liberalism” that wanted to cling to power and impose Emergency on this nation. Wanna know their response? To even criticism, some of it jerky reaction, Praveen Swami has created a separate category: “#idiotwatch”! Such is the contempt for people not as bright as he is. He had perhaps hoped that many of the so called left-liberals would jump on to that word and make it trend on Twitter. Didn’t happen!

In India we currently live under one of the most corrupt and dangerous governments we have ever had. Scams, improprieties, corruption, illegal invasion of privacy, spying on its own citizens and even corruption in the judiciary are all hallmarks of a totalitarian regime and an invitation to disaster. This need not be from the right or left wing alone. There may be many individual lunatics with no ideology but with sufficient belief in their cause to impose havoc and tragedy on innocent citizens. But for Praveen Swami and many others in the media to try and pin a major share of such lunacy on Hindutva is also another extremism that confronts India. I thought the privilege of that lunacy was reserved for the likes of Digvijay Singh and P. Chidambaram.

Breivik’s manifesto has references to various other sources of inspiration including Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch, English DefenceLeague and even Geert Wilders. His actions run quite contrary to the sources of his inspiration. So Praveen Swami and others in the media would do well to save us their delusions.

Evil lunatics do not need outside inspiration. Evil IS their only inspiration.