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THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE BJP BECOMING CONGRESS 2.0

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Among the laundry list of good stuff that the Congress did since independence, they have their list of sins too. They almost legalized corruption. Their appeasement politics irked the remaining majority. They went after opponents constitutionally, many times extra-constitutionally. They manoeuvred laws, many times created laws to favour their network. They allowed red tape everywhere that every business leader, in India and outside would not hesitate to talk about it. Indian economy grew, but India continued to be poor, with our per capita ranked in the 100s. It continues to!  The BJP also has its own laundry list of good stuff. Infra development, defence superiority, growth in innovation, growth in manufacturing. But have they ended up becoming Congress 2.0 in the sins as well? THE CHRONLOGY OF VENDATTA POLITICS BJP rose to power from its fight against Congress on corruption. When AAP came in and challenged them on clean politics, BJP had to play with AAP's image. AAP had to be te...
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𝗧𝗔𝗠𝗜𝗟𝗡𝗔𝗗𝗨 𝗘𝗟𝗘𝗖𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡𝗦 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟲 - 𝗜𝗦 𝗜𝗧 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗖𝗟𝗔𝗦𝗛 𝗢𝗙 𝗧𝗪𝗢 𝗥𝗜𝗚𝗛𝗧 𝗪𝗜𝗡𝗚𝗦?

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Tamilnadu elections next year is not another national vs regional fight, it's not another right wing vs left wing fight, it's not another incumbent vs challenger fight. In many ways, it's a clash of two bigwigs, two right wings - the Tamil right wing and the Hindu right wing, both wings that claim to be nationalists in their own way.   The Tamil nationalist right wing is not a pushover by any means, they have numbers to back them. Last year, they have delivered the highest economic growth among all states, let alone large states - 11.2%. And Tamilnadu story is never just about the economy. Compare the 1960 and 2025 poverty levels across Indian states - from being one of the poorest to one of the richest, Tamilnadu has silently topped all Indian charts.     𝗟𝗘𝗧'𝗦 𝗖𝗢𝗠𝗣𝗔𝗥𝗘 𝗧𝗔𝗠𝗜𝗟𝗡𝗔𝗗𝗨'𝗦 𝗡𝗨𝗠𝗕𝗘𝗥𝗦   For ease of understanding, let's take Tamilnadu and compare its numbers with the national average and against Gujarat, the state that has in m...
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COMMON SCHOOLS, HOSPITALS, TRANSPORT - HOW ABOUT COMMON TEMPLES?

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As the nation, well not quite the nation, a large part of the nation rejoiced the inauguration of Ram Temple in Ayodhya, there are multiple narratives floating around. The first and ubiquitous one is of the victorious Hindutva narrative which had once struggled for its existence but is today basking in the near-complete unity of people, media and Government towards a justice that the inauguration seemingly instilled. The second narrative is of the threatened minority and another part of the majority that does not think this is entirely right. The third narrative is from the indifferent gang that asks, "If only a temple or mosque could have made our lives better!" But then, what should the nation's conscience be? The majority Hindu population has been subjugated for at least a millennium from continuous invasions and inheritors of those invasions. There are enough reasons for pent-up Hindu anger which should certainly not be trivialized. But then it's also true that th...
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WHY OUR COUNTRY NEEDS YOGENDRA YADAV

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I have nothing against Yogendra Yadav, in fact I have a lot of respect for him. But in case you are not able to understand why our country needs Yogendra Yadav, just think about this. If and when the BJP becomes the opposition party at the Centre, they can't criticize the ruling party when fuel prices go up, because they now know that fuel taxes need to hiked to sustain economic growth. They can't criticize when economy tanks, because it's all cyclic. They can't criticize when unemployment hits new lows, because selling pakodas needs to counted into employment. They can't criticize falling rupee because it depends on a lot of macro-economic factors most of which are not in the Government's control. They can't critize damage to environment, because environment destruction is inevitable for progress. They can't ask for debates in Parliament because our country suffers from too much democracy. And when they can't criticize and people start ...
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TO BLAME OR NOT TO

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India has gone through a painful history over the last few hundred years, may be a thousand years. Some of the pain still remains strongly intact that we see its remnants in the frequent clashes between religions, between castes, between languages, between regions. Invasions are often blamed for this disharmony. Sure, they played a huge role, but were invasions the starting point? There are multiple dimensions at play when it comes to culture. Of all the countries, the US has a bad history of slavery, it did not allow women to vote for several decades, women were not even allowed to participate in simple activities like marathons. While they are yet to have a women President, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh have already got women Presidents and Prime ministers. But does that mean the rich ancient civilization of India was all hunky-dory? Probably not. We talk about the destruction from our invaders. But is our history clean? Didn't our victorious Kings rape and loot the lo...
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IS THERE PLACE FOR NATIONALISTIC LIBERALISM IN TODAY'S INDIA?

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I know a lot of good-willing patriots who take pride in our nation's culture and history. While they acknowledge the external and internal infliction of injustice on us over the last few centuries, their point of view doesn't start and end with hatred. These are South Indians who love the North and North Indians who respect the South. These are Dravidians who don't hate the Brahmins, Brahmins who don't reject the idea of privilege. These are Hindus who don't hate the Muslims, Muslims who don't subscribe to the ideas of Islamic politics. These are capitalists who don't believe in labour exploitation, environmentalists who are not against industrialization. Yet, when it comes to citizenry, we want to take sides. My caste, my religion, my language, my state, my ideology. And the political world loves this because when we take sides, it gives them an opportunity to show the other side darker and reinforce their position. But the moment we take sides, we are cau...
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DO WE TAKE A SIDE OR A STAND?

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The people who question one side of the media to be pro Modi don't question when the other side of the media is against Modi. The people who project law and order problems in UP do not want to acknowledge that the law and order situation has in fact improved in UP under the current Yogi Government. The people who wanted Modi to be given 5 years aren't ready to give 5 months to Stalin, and the people who are wanting Stalin to be given time never gave that time to Modi. The people who choose to ignore the political killings in Kerala by saying no Government is perfect, wouldn't want to accept that imperfection in Gujarat. The people who accuse Islam and Christianity of proclaiming they are the greatest religion on the planet do not shy away from proclaiming Hinduism as the greatest. The people who pay tributes to Savarkar one day and say "I am with Netaji" the next day forget the fact that Netaji had called Savarkar a traitor and asked the nation to reject him. The ...
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I AM WITH GANDHI AND WITH BOSE, I AM WITH NEHRU AND WITH PATEL

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Justifying her rant against Gandhi with her bheekh remarks, Kangana Ranaut says you are either with Gandhi or with Bose. And she is not alone. The right-wing nationalists are clear in their proclamations. It's Bose, not Gandhi. It's Patel, not Nehru. And their cult? Savarkar, Golwalkar and Mookerjee. But then there is a contradiction here. In a note to Syama Prasad Mookerjee, Patel talks about the Hindu Right Wing as "anti-national forces of hate and violence" while accusing them of "indulging in arson, robbery, dacoity and murder." He wrote a separate letter to Golwalkar and remarked, "All your speeches are full of communal poison, it was not necessary to spread poison to enthuse Hindus and organise for their protection". If that was Patel, Bose who was himself a fan of Gandhi had remarked, "By taking advantage of religion and desecrating it, the Hindu Mahasabha has entered the arena of politics. It is the duty of all Hindus to condemn it. Ba...
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MAY BE CHILDREN'S DAY IS NOT JUST FOR CHILDREN

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‘Only I Know…’: Sardar Patel Wrote This Letter On Nehru’s 60th Birthday   "Contrary to the impression created by some interested persons, we have worked together as lifelong friends and colleagues, adjusting ourselves to each other’s point of view as the occasion demanded, and valuing each other’s advice as only those who have confidence in each other can." Sadly, the "interested persons" that Patel mentioned in a letter to Nehru on his birthday in 1949 still live on. Coincidentally, many of those interested persons believe in the ideologies of hatred that Patel stood against. In his letters to Hindu right wing organizations post Gandhi's assassination, he noted that "it was not necessary to spread poison in order to enthuse the Hindus and organise for their protection." Ironically he went on to call them "anti-national". In spite of the commendable job that they did or continue to do otherwise, it was not just the Hindu right wing organizati...
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TROLLING HAS NO LIMITS, INSANITY TOO!

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At least 1.2L died in Telangana in 2020, RTI reply finds. That’s double the average from 2016-19. Someone had diabetes and they died from COVID hospitalization, it has been recorded as Diabetes death, COVID is not even secondary reason. That the person could have been alive today if not for COVID has been "politically" overlooked. Not just in Telangana but in many other states too. One year back, there was an epidemiologist Dr. Ramanan Laxminarayan, who got trolled when he said India could see 30-70 cr cases and 20-25 L deaths. Today our own sero-surveys are suggesting 60 cr+ infections. The unofficial numbers from multiple estimates are suggesting 20L+ deaths. Ideally we should be thanking people like Dr. Ramanan for helping us in our decision making, but all we could do was troll. In fact some of his colleagues had warned India of the second wave in Mar, we conveniently ignored and paid the price for it. We promptly trolled them again when they estimated 10L deat...
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WHERE ARE THE PANDAVAS?

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If you thought the Mahabharata war was fought to get Pandavas their right, then you are only partly correct. 100+ Kings, 40L+ soldiers, the destruction of the supposed scale noted in Mahabharata was unprecedented. The story of Mahabharata may or may not have been real, but its messages are.    "Why was such a massive destruction needed?", asks Draupadi after the war. And so Krishna replies, "Rulers across the land had become immoral. The people who were supposed to act as a check for the rulers sang praises instead and ended up becoming immoral themselves. And so it had to be all destroyed and restarted." The message was clear. If we don't question and stand against what we find as immoral, we could one day become the reason for our own destruction.    Are we any different today? There is one gang that praises "their" leader no matter what he/she does, and there is another gang that praises another leader no matter what he/she does. Have we reduced our...
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WHAT DO WE WANT - DEVELOPMENT OR PROTECTION?

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I know this is a sensitive topic and a lot of us hesitate to talk about this in public. But if you talk to anyone remotely associated with the BJP, they will tell you the need for Hindu vote consolidation. There is definitely a justified anger among the Hindu community on the cultural destruction attempted by the Mughals or the lured conversions from the Christian missionaries. The anger continued during partition and exists to date because the Hindus feel the Muslims and Christians still think of their religions as superior and ridicule the stone worship of the Hindus. On top of this, the attempts to establishing an Islamic Caliphate cannot be rubbished. From Iraq to Syria to Lebenan to even Kashmir, people have seen different variants of this. Whether or not this threat is as severe as what the RSS and BJP claim is an argument that can be never ending. But if we leave these arguments aside, are we ready to vote for a party that promises "development" instead of "protec...
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WHY POLITICS INTERESTS ME

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We are living at a time when political, social, economic, religious and business boundaries are blurring. About a decade back in a new business role, I was struggling to understand politics, not the one in office but outside. I had to interact with the Government extensively. Parties, politicians, influencers, officers, gatekeepers - I just couldn't grasp why things weren't straightforward. Anyone who has worked with some Government functionary will know what I am talking about. Running a business meant I had to be constantly watchful of the market influences and changes. Beyond business, my interest in science kept me exploring everything from space to virus, my interest in socio-economics kept me curious about different civilizations, different settlements, different ideologies. My interest in spirituality kept me reading religious books. I don't remember how many versions of Bhagvad Gita I have read so far, how much I have understood is a different question! Pre-Abrahami...
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