Indoctrination works

When the Wall Street whiz kids, the doctors, the engineers or what are otherwise called the cream of the society tend to think of Rahul Gandhi as the deliverer of India's destiny, we know that the secular indoctrination that begins with our primary schools has worked wonders. When our children set out of schools the only names with the highest recall value are Gandhi and Nehru. That is further reinforced by breathless secular cheerleaders breaking us news and non-news alike 24x7. And the result is, the Mahatma and the other Gandhis are indistinguishable.

The much publicized visits to the poor by Rahul have led to many gush filled praises by those who find much virtue in such tokenism. It bothers none that Rahul's party pretty much has a monopoly on governance. His is the party that has been winning elections on empty slogans. 'Garibi hatao', 'Congress ka haath gareebon ke saath' are the pertinent ones. Yet India continues to have one of the largest population of absolutely poor people. The involvement of some of the most significant freedom fighters with the Congress and the continued rule of the party by the Gandhi family is still yielding dividends. And visits, such as the ones by Rahul, only reinforce that.

In a country - touted as the largest, most vibrant democracy - dynastic stranglehold on politics and governments is given a free pass. Debates, especially during the elections, are a telling example of how secular parties obfuscate issues. At the slightest hint of being evaluated on governance record, the discussion is hijacked into a communalism and secularism debate. Existential questions 'how can you not support secularism?' are posed. And with enough canards raised and reinforced by newsmen secular parties become the automatic choice.

And no effort is spared in retaining control. When popular mood turns contrary, discussing facial features resembling past leaders, invoking nostalgia are not out of bounds. Once that works, it is business as usual for the next term and the same facial features will only be invoked when needed next.

One only has to take an objective look at Indian politics, particularly the secular parties and their governance record, their continued dynastic dominance, the remarkable congruity in the views expressed by the media and it will be clear that secular indoctrination has worked.

Non-news drown out real ones

Recent weeks have been no exception to the nauseating coverage of non-news that our Delhi based media seems to be so fond of. All the irresponsible hoopla can be termed as juvenile reaction at best. Editorial responsibilities have long been relinquished in favour of SMS polls and the OMG generation is transfixed.

While feckless journos spread panic reporting swine flu outbreak and wearing masks on TV and attributed unrelated deaths to the flu and also completely over blowing the magnitude of the outbreak, the UBS and the US reached a deal. The UBS agreed to co-operate with the IRS of the US in helping it go after illegal money hidden away in secret accounts. The IRS is seeking 52,000 names from the UBS to go after. Already, 5,000 names will be handed over to the US authorities. And the IRS tax net has widened to go as far as Hong Kong. Yet, such significant events are burried under hysterically drummed up issues. Why is India not doing something similar? Why is the GoI not asked to go after tax evaders? The manufactured panic over swine flu helped drown it out. Singh is still the King.

And if you were to believe our newsmen, a certain Hindi film actor being held for questioning at an US airport was an outrage worthy of diplomatic action. Never mind that it is hardly a case unique to this "celebrity". Many others have had to go through the same. Examples include, Ted kennedy, Bob Dylan, Irfan Khan etc. But the inaction, even on the diplomatic front, by the Manmohan Singh govt. over the Mumbai attacks by Pakistani jihadis seems to be fine. Loss of over 300 innocent lives in a terrorist attacks counts for much less than an hour of a celebrity detention. That's the real outrage.

And while all this allegedly "racist" saga was being hyped up on our TV sets, our "oppressed" "brothers" from the "religion of peace" were rampaging on Janmashtani, destroying Lord Krishna idols and attacking processions celebrating the day. It seems Hindus can never live in peace in their own land. This incidence involved Muslims, who are a majority in the Shahpur-Nagoriwad area of Gujarat, burning houses of the Hindus, pelting stones at them and causing much grief in general. Yet, national news cameras would not care to peep. Contrast that with the moral policing incidence of Mangalore. Social justice demands secular censorship.

Happy Independence Day

This is the 63rd and we are still waiting for all the sacrifices by our brave countrymen/women to bear fruit.

Joint statements don't matter

International relations are governed by what two nations agree upon and state the same jointly. The same is then formalised in form of treaties. But astonishingly, a man who served as an under-secretary at the UN and with much international exposure came up with this ridiculous defense of Manmohan Singh's betrayal of India in Egypt -

[...] MoS for external affairs Shashi
Tharoor on Thursday downplayed the significance of the controversial
India-Pakistan joint statement and said it was a "diplomatic paper" and not a
legally binding commitment.

[...] "It (the joint statement) is a
diplomatic paper that is released to the press different from legal papers,"
[Link]

If that's the logic, how can Singh claim victory at Pakistan's mere admission of it's involvement in Mumbai attacks. It could very well amount to nothing since it's not legally binding.

And that's exactly how the Indo-US Nuclear deal too is playing out. The deal that was eventually sold to us ordinary folks was far from what the joint statement of 2004 mentioned.

This doesn't reflect well on a whole lot of things. Tharoor himself, the Congress's intentions, the UN and the general functioning of bodies like the UN. If this is the thought, then the UN and similar bodies are completely ineffective (not that they have been for long).

India’s interests betrayed in Egypt

The Prime Minister of the Union of India is oath-bound to uphold the sovereignty and integrity of the nation. And also to faithfully discharge his duties towards all manner of people in accordance to the Constitution and the law without fear or favour, affection or ill will.

Now India is no stranger to terrorism. Terrorists have been ripping us apart for decades and thousands of innocent lives have been lost under jihadi attacks. These only increased in intensity and frequency in the last few years. Bomb blasts became a routine and the people, appalled at our leaders' inaction, accepted it as a fact of life. Then 26/11 happened. This attack on Mumbai was no routine bomb blast. But we had professionally trained fidayeen attackers wrecking havoc in India's commercial capital. They held the city hostage for over 60 hours and by the time they were neutralised over 300 innocent lives had been lost. Landmark buildings were in flames, many lives were disrupted. People were enraged at this assault on their lives and the PM addressed the nation. Condemnations and promises were a part of it -

The dastardly terror attacks that took
place in Mumbai last
night and today leading to the loss of many precious lives and injuries to many
others have deeply shocked the nation. I strongly condemn these acts of
senseless violence against innocent people, including guests from foreign
countries. I offer my deepest condolences to the bereaved families and
sympathies to those injured. The Government will take all necessary measures to
look after the wellbeing of the affected families, including medical
treatment of injured.

[...] We are not prepared to countenance
a situation in which the safety and security of our citizens can be violated
with impunity by terrorists.

[...] We will take the strongest possible
measures to ensure that there is no repetition of such terrorist acts. We are
determined to take whatever measures are necessary to ensure the safety and
security of our citizens.

[...] We will take up strongly
with our neighbours that the use of their territory for launching attacks on us
will not be tolerated, and that there would be a cost if suitable measures are
not taken by them. [Link] (Emphasis added)

In the seven months since then, all we saw was a bunch of files exchanged between us and Pakistan. Leave inflicting costs on our neighbour aside, even diplomatic measures weren't forthcoming. When Singh and Gilani met in Egypt last week, this resulted -

Both Prime Ministers recognized that
dialogue is the only way forward. Action on terrorism should not be linked to
the Composite Dialogue process and these should not be bracketed. Prime Minister
Singh said that India was ready to discuss all issues with Pakistan, including
all outstanding issues. [Link] (Emphasis added)

We had Singh assuring the nation, all the while, no dialogue would take place unless Pakistan acted credibly on ending terrorism. And now we have the same Singh agreeing to de-link terrorism from discussions with Pakistan. It gets even worse -

Prime Minister Gilani mentioned that
Pakistan has some information on threats in Balochistan and other areas. [Link]

Balochistan featured in the joint statement. When it is India that is among the worst affected by terrorism in the world and clearly was the victim in the Mumbai attacks, thanks to Singh, Pakistan manages to paint itself as a victim. It was Singh's responsibility to ensure keeping pressure and onus on Pakistan. But what really happened, in his presence, was that both the nations came out as equally aggrieved parties. It is astonishing that images of destruction and innocent blood did not come to Singh's mind when he met Gilani and issued the joint statement in Egypt. And this is the same person who is known to have lost sleep on at least one other occasion. So much for guarding India's interests. Singh's attempt of passing the buck and seeking refuge under "bad drafting" is juvenile to say the least. It lends all the more credence to the fact that he was not being diligent in Egypt.

Singh, being the PM, ought to realise the responsibilities of his position and the potential implications of his actions on nation. He has demonstrated an inability to do so on multiple occasions. This particular joint statement has grave implications. Singh's judgement is a suspect. Until he proves otherwise, it must be concluded that Singh is incapable of keeping our national interest above all else.

Home is where Sharia is

Typical of the Islamists to not feel at home where Islam is under the scanner. It seems, assimilation is something they do not believe in. Every place they seek to inhibit must be turned to a Dar-Ul-Islam and no effort is spared until that is achieved. Apparently, tolerance, respect, understanding and accommodation in general only applies to the kafirs for the Islamists are the chosen ones by their Allah.

Geert Wilders' (see previous posts here and here) efforts at bringing forth the reality of Islam and its crusaders is bearing fruit in Europe. His party - Party for Freedom - is fast becoming popular. Recent opinion polls suggest his will be the largest party if polls were held now. And this growing popularity of an "anti-Islamist" is making the Muslims there queasy. They were quite happy so long as dhimmis apologised for them and Sharia courts were being allowed to function. After all, how can a devout Muslim stand anything that questions Islam?

Findings from the recent surveys of Dutch Muslims -

· More than a third of all
Moroccan-Dutch or Turkish-Dutch say they want to leave the country because of Wilders' growing
popularity, according to a Motivaction poll commisisoned by the current affairs programme Netwerk.
· More
than half (51 percent) say they are thinking more and more about emigrating.
· Three-quarters say they still feel at home in the Netherlands, but a
majority (56 percent) say they fell less at home because of the rise of Wilders' anti-Islam Party
for Freedom (PVV).

· The PVV won 16.9 percent of
the vote in the June 2009 European election, making it the second biggest party
in the Netherlands [Link]

There's a reason conservative parties are winning seats and are on the rise in Europe (British National Party in the UK, Freedom Party in Austria). Back home, our political leaders bitten by the "secularism" bug would do well to understand this.

Stand-up comic up to no good

For all his verbal jugglery, funny man, Laloo really has nothing much to show for his performance. We now learn his much praised tenure as the rail minister was nothing but a fraud. Much like all of the UPA's "social justice" policies, Laloo's claim of having earned crores in profits for the railways is a sham. Here's what Mamta said in the Lok Sabha on Thursday -

“Some people have spoken about a profit of Rs 90,000 crore.
But one can just not talk about the income and skip the expenditure part. After
spending Rs 28,200 crore on account of the Sixth Pay Commission award for two
years, we are left with a cash surplus of just Rs 8,361 crore. This balance is
after taking the entire last five years into account,” Mamata Banerjee revealed
while replaying to the debate on Railway Budget for 2009-10 in the Lok Sabha on
Thursday. [Link]

Here's a summary -

What Mamata exposed
One cannot just talk about income
and skip expenditure part
After spending Rs 28,200 crore on account of the
Sixth Pay Commission for two years, we are left with a cash surplus of just Rs
8,361 crore against much-hyped Lalu claim of Rs 90,000 cr of profit
This
balance is after taking the last five years into account
We are not here to
build up balances of the Ministry but to create infrastructure
Ministers may
come and go but the institution remains
We want a railway that is for
everyone and not for someone special
Reiterates her commitment to come out
with a white paper [Link]

Strangely, when faced with this damning revelation, he didn't seem to have much to say except put up a funny face.

A shell-shocked Lalu Prasad was left
speechless as Mamata seemed well-prepared and armed with every fact and figure
to supplement her claims. Lalu remained a mute spectator as the Bengal tigress
went on demolishing the myth he had created in all these years. “We are not here
to build up balances of the Ministry but to create infrastructure. Ministers may
come and go, but the institution remains. We want a Railway that is for everyone
and not for someone special,” Mamata said. [Link]

Yeah, and all this right under the nose of an "honest liberal economist".