CAA

Musings, Potshots, Remembering

Harvesting Human Riots?

Mani 2 Comments

This one is especially for my dear, tolerant and genuinely Communist friends  – who I believe are as different from today’s ‘Left Liberals’ as Indrajit Gupta was from Lavrentiy Beria

I’ve been filled with a sense of foreboding since yesterday, December 10th.   Filled with memories of January – February 2020.

On 31st January, 2020, after two  months’ mixed feelings and foreboding about the nature and direction of the anti-CAA protests at Shaheen Bagh and elsewhere, after two months’ of being buffeted and thoroughly addled by conflicting high-decibel media messages all purporting to present truth, I took a train down to Shaheen Bagh to see  and judge for myself what was going on there. I spent half a day wandering around in Shaheen Bagh and its neighbourhood.  I was appalled and disgusted at what I saw and learned from that visit; I wrote that the so-called anti-CAA protest in Shaheen Bagh was in fact a brilliantly conceived Pilot Project for Mass Murder, a plot to spark off countrywide Hindu-Muslim riots.  I also pointed out who I believed were the primary organizers of this diabolic Project: assorted self-proclaimed Left-oriented riffraff, including university students’ unions, rabble-rousing university faculty, and their obedient faculty-challenged followers.

I was also convinced, and wrote so, that besides the Left, every other political formation in India—including the ruling BJP —supported the Pilot Project for Mass Murder in Shaheen Bagh, overtly or covertly.

Because, with the Ayodhya–Babri Masjid case resolved once and for all thanks to the Supreme Court of India, all politicians and their hangers-on, Left and Right and Communal and Casteist, were desperate to find a lasting inflammable issue that could keep the fires of communal division burning between Hindu and Muslim, to be conveniently fanned at will in future election campaigns.

And what better long-lived inflammable issue than a good old-fashioned communal riot?

It didn’t take long after my visit for the Pilot Project to be implemented.

Communal riots began on 23rd February in Delhi and raged for the next five days. Officially, 53 people were killed.  

The organizational skills of the street-smart Left had proved their mettle yet again.

Of course, there’s no evidence that the Left were behind it all.  There never is.

For the simple, time-tested reason, that when the forest fire finally dies after raging for days, no one really cares about or looks for the little matchstick that started it in the first place.

No one really cares or looks…especially when all political parties and their captive media houses have benefited from the fire.

And so, 53 murders and nine months later, there are still hundreds of families in grief and pain in Delhi…and no one is responsible.

I declare without shame that even in my horror at the carnage, I was relieved the toll in the riots was ‘only’ 53 and not 530, or 53,000.  

Because, gentle reader, I do believe that that was what the politicians would have liked: to see thousands dead, tens of thousands maimed, lakhs displaced.

Especially, the politicians of the Left and the Congress.

Because, for these two formations, BJP leader Narendra Modi’s greatest crime is that under his watch as Prime Minister since 2014, there has not been a single major riot comparable to the great riots of yore: Gujarat 2002,  Bombay 1992-93 (oh…no one talks about that anymore, because the murderous Muslim-hating Shiv Sena is today Secular), Ahmedabad, Hyderabad and Meerut 1989, Bhagalpur 1989, Delhi 1984 …and so on ad nauseum back to Partition 1947.  

For Modi’s rule to be without riots goes against the Left—Congress Narrative, you see. 

According to the Left–Congress Narrative, the advent of Modi Sarkar should have heralded the murder of Muslims and other minorities on a scale that would make Comrade Stalin appear to be Mother Teresa.

By the Grace of Allah and Krishna and Marx large-scale communal rioting hasn’t happened yet…despite the best efforts of gau rakshaks, Shri Ram Sene and other fanatical Hindu groups.

But the fear-mongers of the Left and Congress haven’t stopped trying.  They just love their Narrative about Modi.

So much so, they will alter Reality to suit their Narrative; they will use Fear, and its dread sibling-twins Hatred and Rage, to push innocent people to the brink of unreason.

And that’s why again I am troubled and filled with foreboding.

I fear that where they failed in pitting Hindus against Muslims, the Left Liberals now seek opportunity in pitting Farmers against Government.

It’s the 11th of December. It’s three days since the Bharat Bandh that was called by Congress, CPI(M), and affiliated political riffraff on December 8th to express their ‘solidarity’ with the farmers of Punjab and Haryana who are camping peacefully on the borders of Delhi and seeking repeal of the recently passed laws that they believe will threaten their (farmers’) interests and livelihoods.

I’ve been filled with admiration for the farmers and their collectives, for stoutly refusing to allow any political parties or political voices to hijack their own peaceful movement.

I was filled with joy on 10th December: because the Bharat Bandh had arrived and departed like an autumn cloud, with much noise but no rain; with much Opposition chest-thumping but without any major violence or loss of life.

But today, December 11th, I see the unholy Left groups gathered alongside farmers belonging to the Left-backed Bhartiya Kisan Union (Ekta-Ugrahan) at Tikri, on Delhi’s borders.

I see the same people and hear the same voices that whipped up paranoia and anger over CAA among the bewildered Muslims of Shaheen Bagh during prime-time hours. They wave posters of their heroes—among them well-known Gandhians such as Sharjeel Islam, Varavara Rao, Sudha Bharadwaj, Gautam Navlakha, Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira—and demand their release from jail where they currently await trial for planning or instigating large-scale social discord including riots.  

Photo: courtesy The Wire; https://thewire.in/rights/farmer-protests-arrested-activists-academics

Asked what their heroes or indeed they themselves have to do with the farmers’ movement, the Left supporters declare that they are simply observing ‘Human Rights Day’.

I wonder: do the Comrades actually mean ‘Human Riots Day’?

To them I say – foolishly and wistfully hoping they might listen to counsel from a 64-year-old fossil who hath seen much death, much pain:

Anarchy’s Romance rebounds as Terror, tears reason asunder

Hymns of Peace will not then calm thee to slumber

Beware, Truth’s Bell will not rouse thee, from pretended sleep

Deceit’s Seed thou soweth; a Violent Harvest shalt thou reap

.

General ravings, Musings

Time to get stoned!

Mani 6 Comments

NO STONE UNTURNEDAnd so, Delhi burns.

High time it did too, no?

After all, over two months have passed since the CAA was enacted and the anti-CAA sit-down protest began in Shaheen Bagh, December 15th 2019.

Two months…with not even one decent-sized communal riot to reward the sincere and strenuous efforts that have been made by political parties Left and Right, along with their captive journalists and intellectuals, to spark off riots.

Oh sure, a few score Delhi Police personnel—men and women—have been beaten up or pelted into coma with stones or stabbed or shot from time to time.  But then they don’t count…who cares about cops, right?

[Aside: is attacking police personnel considered ‘Secular’ or ‘Communal’ violence?]

But now at last, on 25th February 2020, hope blazes in our hearts, like the fires blazing in North-East Delhi.

Hope, that for the first time since Gujarat 2002, we can all get to watch real-time large-scale Communal Riots on Prime Time.

Yayyyy.

For the looming Riots, we must thank our beloved political leaders who always have the strengthening of Human Riots  uppermost in their minds –  like Kapil Mishra of BJP and  Waris Pathan of AIMIM.

And unlike in the primitive days of Gujarat 2002, when people didn’t even have mobile phones (imagine that! How Jurassic!)   we can not only follow the Riots as they unfold but safely participate in the Mobs, too! Thanks to Social Media.

We can create and spread poisonous rumours, we can ignite murderous rage, at the speed of electrons, without messing up our hands with blood and gore …yucccckkk. And without any danger of getting caught by the police, either…assuming there are any police left to catch us, of course…Ha Ha Ha.

Hail the glory of WhatsApp!  Oh, the joyous anonymity of end-to-end encryption!

And hail the wondrous power of Instagram too!  Don’t you just love those multi-media Instagram ‘Stories’ that self-destruct within 20 seconds so there’s no evidence left?  Stories that you and I can create and forward to spread the most unspeakably violent videos and messages, the most cruel propaganda, secure in the knowledge that in less than half a minute the Stories will vanish with nothing to show the stories ever passed through or even existed in our phones? Or in anyone else’s phones?

Forgive the flippancy, gentle reader…but the situation today merits graveyard humour.

Because the danger is real…especially to the ‘young’ who more or less live in the virtual worlds of their mobile phones and Social Media.

Because Social Media does give each one of us the wild, untrammeled irresponsibility of the Mob member.

And Mobs are frightful.

The very nature of a Mob can transform us, however rational we might think we are, whatever be our social and economic status, into creatures capable of terrible violence.

A Mob offers anonymity and provides a feeling of security by its sheer numbers. It removes our sense of individual responsibility, and thereby dismantles the elaborate codes of ethics and morality that govern ‘normal’ conduct.

Nobel Laureate Elias Canetti viewed the Mob as a ‘biological entity’, something qualitatively different from the simple sum of its parts. His description of how a quiet street-corner gathering develops into a violent Mob is chillingly familiar. [quote from a 2002 edit-page article I wrote on Gujarat riots ]

“Nothing has been announced, nothing is expected, but suddenly the street is transformed. Windows are thrown open, people come out of doors and alleys — streaming in from all sides as though streets had only one direction. At first the only noticeable property of this composite creature is its urge to grow. It wants to seize everyone within reach. Anything shaped like a human can join it. It knows no limits and admits of no restrictions. It does not recognize houses, doors or locks, and those who try to shut themselves in or deny its hunger are immediately suspect…

‘‘As long as the crowd is growing, it feels secure. But as soon as growth becomes restricted, as soon as it runs out of its natural food, it gets irritable and develops a sense of persecution. It becomes hostile and then it starts to break things. Windows of shops and houses, windscreens of cars are the first to go because they provide such a satisfying sound. Doors, gates and fences, anything that represents a boundary, become the next target and are torn down and trampled underfoot.

And finally comes fire. Of all methods of destruction, this is the most impressive. It can be seen from far off and attracts even more people. It destroys irrevocably; nothing is the same after a fire. A crowd setting fire to something feels irresistible. It is. The quiet evening street is now a district in riot, an environment inhabited by an organism that is out of control…”

The rioting Mobs of Delhi 1984, of Bombay 1992-93, of Gujarat 2002, left thousands dead, tens of thousands maimed, and a nation in despair. But who were the Mob members? Who were those tens of thousands who pelted stones and firebombs, who fell upon their fellow Indians and beat them, molested them, raped them, killed them?

Within hours, within a day or two, they were all back to their ‘normal’ selves — lawyers and laundry-owners, teachers and traders, students and shopkeepers, professors and paan vendors, bankers and businessmen, writers and rickshaw pullers. Nice ‘respectable’ people, young and old.

People just like us. Their faces are our faces.

And what of the evil men and women who sowed the seeds of the Mobs, who broke the reservoirs of violence with whispered rumours and words of poison?

They vanished without trace, as they always do.

As have vanished the evil men and women who planted the seeds of communal violence in Shaheen Bagh.

And so Delhi burns…

 

General ravings, Musings

Shaheen Bagh: a Pilot Project for Mass Murder

Mani 7 Comments

This is about the ongoing anti-CAA protests at Shaheen Bagh, New Delhi.

I visited Shaheen Bagh on Friday the 31st January 2020 between 10:00 and 14:30. I wanted to find out, for myself, whether the anti-CAA protest going on here is indeed ‘spontaneous’ as claimed by Left-leaning media and their cohorts; or whether it is ‘manufactured’ as claimed by the Right-leaning media and their cohorts.

What I learned and experienced confirms my worst fears about what’s going on in Shaheen Bagh and where it will lead us—fears that I summarized in this photo (apologies: I might have already  posted this to some of you on 31st January via WhatsApp and Instagram).

Shaheen Bagh - The Morning After

 I firmly believe the Shaheen Bagh protest is as spontaneous as a forest fire started by ‘tourists’ who first doused the helpless trees with petrol, then set the trees  ablaze starting with the young ones … and now visit the fire every evening during Prime Time TV hours with fresh supplies of petrol and other inflammatory materials to make sure the fires don’t die out.   

I expected to find a sea of protesters, singing and chanting slogans of Peace, Harmony, Patriotism, Insaaniyat. I found barely 70 to 80 people in all. About a dozen women were in their tent, near the makeshift stage; the men stood around outside in little clusters, tense, conversing in low murmurs. Barring a couple of Mentors and one Minder who stood out by their suspicious glances towards me, their confident, persuasive tones and carefully careless attire, all were locals. My few conversations with the local men were short, their nods were brief, smiles strained. They were courteous, I wandered around and took a few photos unhindered. But there was fear in their eyes, in the air. The fear  fear that took me back to Bombay, 1992, when men turned into monsters and the stench of blood and burning human hair and death hung over Dharavi and Mahim and Jogeshwari…

I joined one group; they were anxiously discussing the young Muslim man who had been shot at by another, a Hindu,  outside the Jamia Millia the previous day. “It might happen here!” was their refrain.  A Mentor reassured them that it wouldn’t; urged them  to remain courageous and continue their ‘andolan‘.

Aside of the Mentors and Minder, there was only one other non-local like me: a middle-aged bearded man wandering around with a camera. Where are the crowds, the speeches and shows? he asked a little plaintively. The Minder, who was built like a mini-truck, was gruff: “Sham ko ao…tabhi log aate hain.”

Come in the evening: that’s when the crowds are here.

Shaheen Bagh is designed for Prime Time.

I reiterate what I voiced in an earlier post: that each and every political group in India—Left or Right, AAP or non-existent Centre—is yearning for large-scale communal violence to divide the masses along Hindu vs. Muslim lines. Because the Ayodhya issue that has sustained all of them for over 30 years has finally been resolved honourably by the Supreme Court, much to their chagrin; henceforth, Babri Masjid and Ram Janmabhoomi can no longer be flogged by them for votes.

And so, all political parties are doing their best—and their worst—to create a new long-term issue for Hindu vs. Muslim polarization. They all hope to gain by sparking off communal violence in Shaheen Bagh. And they are being aided and abetted in their efforts by their respective captive media and ‘intellectuals’.

I firmly believe the locals of Shaheen Bagh and of nearby Abu Fazal Enclave – the majority of them hapless working class Muslims —have been terrorized by Evil Teachers into believing that because of CAA it is only a matter of time before they, and all other Muslims in India, will be identified as ‘illegals’, carted off to detention camps by the police, and then ‘deported’ – if not murdered by RSS-led Hindu mobs.

I now know for sure who these Evil Visiting Teachers of Shaheen Bagh are, too.  I think you too won’t find it hard to identify them even without visiting Shaheen Bagh – some of the posters are a dead giveaway (see below).

No words can convey my rage and sadness at what is being done at  Shaheen Bagh…at the venality of those who have made its impoverished people scapegoats in a Pilot Project for scaling up to nation-wide violence.

The Shaheen Bagh Project is already showing signs of success. Anti-CAA has already morphed into anti-NRC, anti-NPR, anti-Census. Young women and men undertaking routine social indicator surveys in rural areas – Bengal and U.P come to mind – have been severely assaulted because of the Project’s most effective and toxic CAA Awareness Programs.

The Right to Citizenship has already morphed into the Right as a Citizen to Remain Anonymous and Invisible – without of course surrendering any Rights to receive state largess due to caste, religion, and so forth.

The first guns have emerged. The protests against the Shaheen Bagh protests are getting more edgy…even as Delhi’s Assembly elections are days away.

The secondary fires from Shaheen Bagh now spread across India – even as Assam, the only state where the presence of about 2 million Bangladeshis is not disputed by any but the chronically insane, remains tense but calm.

Thereby hangs a tale.

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The outer barriers – easily crossed, just one police gypsy with a few bored constables who didn’t bother me

Inside barriers looking out
Inside the inner barrier, looking out

Waiting for Prime Time
Waiting for Prime Time?

Venue 1
Nearing the venue – women’s tent on right

Venue 2

Revolution or revulsion

Case against EVMs - by Bhagat Singh in Detention Camp
Bhagat Singh, in Detention Camp, makes case against EVMs and for manual ballot!

Posters - 2

 

Posters - 1

Power point on CAA
Power Point on CAA: please do follow the flowchart paths carefully! Which brilliant minds stitched  together so many half-truths and plain lies with such skill?

Posters - 3

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One of two noisome canals you cross to reach Shaheen Bagh from the Metro Station

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General ravings, Potshots, Verse perverse

CAA, Nuclear Physics and Opium for the Masses

Mani 6 Comments

I write this at the urging of a dear friend, who believes (bless him!) that I might have something worthwhile to contribute on this whole CAA-NRC issue that’s  destroying so many lives and so much public property and so many millions of youngsters’ academic careers and the nation’s collective equanimity (except, maybe, Amit Shah’s and Pinarayi Vijayan’s equanimity).

But I can’t get started on CAA-NRC and affiliated crap; not right now, at least. I am still too filled with angst at the way our political leaders – BJP, Congress, CPI(M), the whole rabid lot of them and their respective captive media-houses – have yet again exploited the well-known, repeatedly validated tendency of We the Moronic Indian People to allow ourselves to be suckered by netas and kooky religious leaders into taking violently extreme and opposed positions on things we understand little or nothing about.

Right now I only do three things (ignoring your theatrical groans):

1 – I declare my belief that Amit Shah, Union Home Minister and BJP leader, has crafted and timed the passage of CAA in Parliament, supplemented with carefully planned loose talk about NRC and NPR, as a cold-blooded, brilliantly laid trap to ensure that India remains divided along communal Hindu vs. Muslim lines till the next Lok Sabha elections. I believe Amit Shah has done this because the Ayodhya issue, which has been used by all political parties to divide the people for 30 years but benefited BJP the most, has finally and honourably been resolved by the Supreme Court…and therefore the BJP is desperate to find another issue to keep the people polarized on communal lines.  And predictably, tragically, the fools of the Congress, CPI(M) and other Opposition parties have fallen into this BJP trap by taking communal positions on the CAA issue and fighting street battles over CAA instead of fighting CAA on logical grounds, on Constitutional grounds; they are right in opposing the CAA, but they are opposing  it for horrendously wrong reasons and in violent ways…and this is precisely what BJP wants  [More on this later, I promise…if I can conquer my nausea]

2 – I translate the infernal, eternal, and vehemently disavowed words of the great Narakasura the Terrible, ruler of ancient Pragjyotishpura [c. 1191–1124 BCE]

Beware cruel Leaders who light Fires of Radicalism, Fanaticism

In the minds of the ignorant, gullible and young,

To divide them, break them, as white light in a prism

Till they forget the One Source from which we’ve all sprung…

 Thus riven, passions aflame, driven by Sermons of Venom and Hate

The masses butcher one another in the names of Secular Gods and Prophets

Whilst in theirs quiet clubs and boardrooms, on their electronic slates

The Netas and the Priests chuckle, and chalk up their Profits…

 

3 – To complete your agony, I paste below a highly irrelevant article on Secularism and Nuclear Physics written in 2007 by another dear old friend, Ghatotkacha the Late (alas, he disappeared without trace soon after posting this article: unconfirmed reports suggest he was dispatched by a joint assassin squad comprising members of Bajrang Dal,  SIMI and certain unnameable and unmentionable Leftist groups).

Indian Scientists Discover ‘Secularon’

It is a moment that all Indians should be proud of. On Friday 1st June 2007, at precisely 2344 hrs IST, a team of scientists headed by Dr Falturam G Bakthahai of the prestigious IIFS (Indian Institute of Fundamentalist Sciences) announced the discovery of a new fundamentalist particle found only in Indian adult brains: the ‘secularon’.  Social and political scientists believe that this strange and elusive particle holds the key to understanding the various forces that influence political behaviour among Indians.

“Naturally, we are thrilled!” announced a visibly tired Dr Falturam at a hastily convened press conference at the sprawling IIFS campus in New Delhi. “Our team has worked very hard these past four years. We have had to face and overcome immense technological challenges and resource constraints…but now, finally our efforts have been rewarded!”

News of the IIFS breakthrough has generated great excitement not only in India but across the global scientific community. Many feel the secularon’s discovery is as momentous as that of the neutron in 1932 by Sir James Chadwick.

“The IIFS finding is stupendous!” says Prof. Mel O’Drama, well-known philosopher, science writer and Head of Caltech’s Department of High Energy Physics. “The discovery of the secularon confirms Richard Feynman’s famous tenet: that ‘the only thing we know for sure is that we don’t know anything for sure’!”

His views are echoed by scientists across the world. “The secularon’s discovery reveals how little we know about our Universe, and indeed about humankind itself,” observes Nobel laureate Dr Gott Tubi-Jokin, Head of the Psychophysics-Cyberobiology group at the University of Grumingen-Schlauss. “Just as the discovery of the neutron changed our understanding of atomic science, the secularon’s discovery dramatically alters our long-held theories of Indian political science.”

Dr Falturam agreed to answer a few basic questions regarding the nature and significance of the secularon.

 What is the secularon?

The secularon is a tiny, negatively charged fundamentalist particle that is found only in living Indian brain cells. It contains at least 237 extremely complex organic compounds – most appear to be enzymes. These compounds are looped together in a kind of triple-helix form, vaguely reminiscent of DNA’s double-helix shape and also somewhat resembling the trishul shape venerated by Hindus.

Why is the secularon’s discovery so important?

The secularon exists only in Indian adult brains; it is unique to our nation’s population! Our studies reveal that an average adult Indian brain contains an estimated 2.34 billion secularons, and that the nature and level of secularon activity in a brain directly influences the political outlook of the owner of the brain. In simple terms, we can tell whether an Indian is secular or communal simply by studying the secularons in his or her brain!

Can you please elaborate?

Well…to start with it is important to understand that the secularon can exist in two possible energy states: ‘passive’ or ‘active’. We have found that the secularon can switch between these two states several million times a day! At any given instant, if the majority of secularons in a person’s brain are passive, that person exhibits secular behaviour. However, when the majority of secularons are active, the person becomes communal.

How does the secularon switch between active and passive states?

Indeed, this question foxed our team for three years. Now we know that the secularon’s energy state is determined by a factor that is external to the brain itself! To be precise, whether a secularon is active or passive depends entirely on the political climate in which the observation is made.

Do you mean a person is sometimes secular and sometimes communal, depending on both the observer and the external political environment?

Precisely! IIFS has evolved a set of equations – tentatively named ‘Arjun-Advani Transformations’ – to describe this extraordinary behaviour. These equations resemble the Lorentzian transformations of relativity theory. At the macro-level, we have found that the secularity of a person varies in direct proportion to the closeness of that person to the Congress and/or Communist parties. Examples abound, not only of individuals but entire political parties!  For instance, the DMK party members had active secularons in their brains (and were therefore communal) when they opposed Congress in the late 1980s. However, their secularons switched to passive (and they became secular) as soon as they backed the Congress-led UPA government. The Telugu Desam members were purely secular when they backed the United Front, but deeply communal when they backed the BJP-led NDA. Sharad Pawar was a secular Congressman who became communal when he opposed Sonia Gandhi and formed the NCP; but now he has regained secularity by supporting the UPA. Another fine example is Sanjay Nirupam, ex-Shiv Sena MP and rabid communalist who is now the epitome of secularity because he has joined the Congress.

 Truly amazing!   Will the discovery have any impact on future politics in India?

Well, I cannot comment on that. However, our discovery does reveal that Indian secularism is as transient and ephemeral as our development plans are.

What is your team’s next quest?

We are trying to isolate another even more elusive fundamentalist particle – we call it the ‘minoritron’. As its name suggests, the minoritron imparts the feeling of ‘minority-ness’ to a brain. The minoritron is far more stable than the secularon; once a brain feels a sense of minority-ness, it becomes permanent. Unfortunately, the minoritron carries no charge and occupies virtual space; this makes it as difficult to detect as the neutrino. However, we are confident we shall succeed, thanks to a grant of 2200 crore rupees from our beloved HRD Minister Arjun Singh. We shall be collaborating in our work with a team of scientists from ILS (Institute of Lactile Sociodynamics), Kanpur. You may recall that ILS did path-breaking research with milk cookers in the 1980s that finally led to the discovery of the regresson – the Backward-spinning cerebral particle – and formulation of the famous Creamy Layer Postulate that forms the bedrock of today’s affirmative action policy. It is our hope that we may one day unify the secularon and minoritron into a Grand Unified Theory of Backward Integration, thereby showing India the way to retrogressive progress.

 

Jai Hind!