Leave the hot takes aside for the moment and spend part of your evening with two must-read pieces.
The first is an Atul Dev profile of Amit Shah, published by The Guardian. The nut graf, the reason you should read this:
A defining feature of life in India today is the suffocating atmosphere of menace and threat to critics of the government. Shah is the face and embodiment of this fear, which lurks everywhere, from the newsrooms to the courtrooms, and which inspires a sense of alarm that is bigger than the sum of the facts and anecdotes that can be amassed to illustrate it. Suspended in the margins between what is known and what can be said, no individual story is more illustrative of contemporary India than that of Amit Shah.
The second story is by M Rajshekhar, who had in March produced an extensively researched piece on Vantara, the Ambani vanity project that is endangering India’s wildlife. Here, he looks at the scratch-my-back cronyism that undergirds BJP politics and asks a question that is fundamental to the practice of journalism:
Hardwired into that is an answer to the primary question citizens must ask every government: Cui bono? Who gained under you?
What an article! Somehow one always knew that Billa-Ranga were thugs and ruthless and power hungry, which makes them so dangerous. But reading this it makes me nauseous at who we revere in society and politics and how crime is normalised and in fact an aspiration. Why are we like this? And no, it's not "human beings, everywhere or politics everywhere", that won't wash. It's us. Sick!
Besides what Roy writes below, one thing to keep in mind: We always had the seeds of caste and communalism in us. What was different then was that it was socially unacceptable to voice such thoughts. As a teen, I remember my dad once forbidding entry to our home to a colleague of his who was rabidly casteist and prone to using the sort of slurs that are common currency today.
Today I am off all family groups because such talk -- both communal and casteist -- have become common. How did we get here? Because we were given permission.
Think of that moment when Trump walked down from his room at Trump Tower and announced his candidature for President with a racist appeal (all Mexicans are rapists). Suddenly, it became ok not only to think it, but to openly voice it.
We went the same route in the late eighties/early nineties when the RSS and Advani began their anti-Muslim diatribes, culminating in that yatra -- the message being, Muslims bad, Muslims terrorists... and with that, it became ok for us to give voice, loudly, to all our innate prejudices.
We were -- a section of us were -- always like this. What the. hindutva combine has done is to signal that it is acceptable to be who we are. Not just acceptable, even desirable. Maybe, whenever there is a change in regime, we will learn to suppress or not openly voice such thoughts, but it isn't going to go away. Prejudice and hatred is too deeply embedded and, when coupled with ignorance, that is a lethal combination.
And it is that lethal combination that the power-hungry duo are milking dry. And the masses fall for it. When coupled with unemployment and lack of education it's a ticking time bomb.
Add to it a national debt that has swelled to three times the size of 2014 under this regime. The fact that the demographic dividend, which was to give us the largest working age population in the world is now giving us the largest unemployment rate in 45 years... and on and on and on...
It's the result of societal engineering - it starts out on a small scale and then grows to take on a life of its own which ultimately sweeps almost everything in its path brutalizing the few who dare to question or resist. With the media in their pockets it churns out narratives of the majority in mortal danger, a glorious civilization in peril from the rampaging barbarians (meaning jin logo ka jada bachcha hai) and stokes the flames of nationalistic pride steeped in dubious claims of economic prosperity which benefit only the very few at the top...
When that criminal Advani started his Rath yatra in 92 I was in college and instinctively I had felt that the poison that he helped spread would have long lasting consequences and what we are seeing now is almost a natural culmination with Modi-Shah destroying the very foundations of the pillars of a democracy. On a somewhat related note NY Times today carried a long article about how extremist ideology has taken root in Israel to the point where it's a normal ingredient of the collective Israeli psyche today... I fear BJP is moulding India in a similar shape and I can only pray it's not too late before the tide can be turned.
It is too late. How many Indian intellectuals, elite, liberals (liberandu - an ugly moniker given by the same right wingers, just like presstitutes and others) of yesteryears, who had morals, some principles say like Romila Thapar, or Irfan Habib or activists can really fight. Who to fight? How much? Look at Umar Khalid. There is no hope. It is us. This is us. We, the people who have allowed things to slide. In my lifetime it isn't going to change. The seeds were sown decades ago and the new shoots as well as old bears are baring extremist, hate riddled fangs. Check out the woman in Rae Bareli interviewed by Ajit Anjum - she is spouting WA University verbatim - she's afraid that her money (translated, mangalsutra) will be taken away. How can we fight this blind, logic-less faith? And when this man passes away, his successor will reap the benefits of this maddening madness of reverence. It's going to be decades before we slide back...and maybe by then there'll be other ideologies to contend with. I just need a country where I don't have to live with guilt, fear or shame and I don't want to feel like I need to cower because I have Muslim or Christian friends. It's not much of an ask, but it is.
I would be not so pessimistic! One kind of take is that the hatred and intolerance predominantly comes from either the privileged bigots, whose lives would be largely unaffected by who is in power, or economically insecure, who are exploited in the name of religion. If in the future, whenever there is a change in regime, if we can generate jobs and improve economic security, part of it will go away, hopefully limiting the long-term damage. In these elections, at least in my bubble, it is obvious that no party can be successful by just playing on religion alone - the story is bigger than that and we should not give up on hope for redemption.
Not giving up on hope, Mohan -- if that was the case I'd have stopped writing a long time ago, or stayed with the more lucrative option of writing on cricket. It is just an awareness that it is going to take a very long time to right this boat, is all. Like you, I still hope...and believe.
The scary part is that we knew every single thing there is in that article -- each of the instances has made headlines at various times. (The CBI actually told the SC that Shah runs an extortion racket, for god's sake). We knew... and we allowed it to slide out of our memories, our consciousness.
What Dey's article does is to collect all those discrete dots, and connect them up, and show you the picture that emerges when you do connect the dots. (By the way, "connect the dots" is a basic tenet of journalism).
Exactly! The gist of the article is not exactly new but when all of it is put together it still is a chilling reminder of where we have ended up at this moment.
It reminded me of Aakar Patel's book, Price of Modi Years. I have it handy in my reference section, but when I first read it this was the same thought I had.
Back in the day I used to clip articles from newspapers and put them in labelled files. Once the Internet evolved and tools evolved with it, it became easier -- save to Evernote with tags, and more recently to Roam Research.
When I was reading Aakar's book the first time, I realised that almost every single data point, every discrete event he has talked about and linked to is in my online folders. His excellence was that he put them all together, thematically, to paint a bigger, grimmer picture.
useful to remind myself ot conect the dots, every now and again
Atul Dev ought to know that an efficient shepherd always has a big crook by his side.
Nicely played :-)
What an article! Somehow one always knew that Billa-Ranga were thugs and ruthless and power hungry, which makes them so dangerous. But reading this it makes me nauseous at who we revere in society and politics and how crime is normalised and in fact an aspiration. Why are we like this? And no, it's not "human beings, everywhere or politics everywhere", that won't wash. It's us. Sick!
Besides what Roy writes below, one thing to keep in mind: We always had the seeds of caste and communalism in us. What was different then was that it was socially unacceptable to voice such thoughts. As a teen, I remember my dad once forbidding entry to our home to a colleague of his who was rabidly casteist and prone to using the sort of slurs that are common currency today.
Today I am off all family groups because such talk -- both communal and casteist -- have become common. How did we get here? Because we were given permission.
Think of that moment when Trump walked down from his room at Trump Tower and announced his candidature for President with a racist appeal (all Mexicans are rapists). Suddenly, it became ok not only to think it, but to openly voice it.
We went the same route in the late eighties/early nineties when the RSS and Advani began their anti-Muslim diatribes, culminating in that yatra -- the message being, Muslims bad, Muslims terrorists... and with that, it became ok for us to give voice, loudly, to all our innate prejudices.
We were -- a section of us were -- always like this. What the. hindutva combine has done is to signal that it is acceptable to be who we are. Not just acceptable, even desirable. Maybe, whenever there is a change in regime, we will learn to suppress or not openly voice such thoughts, but it isn't going to go away. Prejudice and hatred is too deeply embedded and, when coupled with ignorance, that is a lethal combination.
And it is that lethal combination that the power-hungry duo are milking dry. And the masses fall for it. When coupled with unemployment and lack of education it's a ticking time bomb.
Add to it a national debt that has swelled to three times the size of 2014 under this regime. The fact that the demographic dividend, which was to give us the largest working age population in the world is now giving us the largest unemployment rate in 45 years... and on and on and on...
It's the result of societal engineering - it starts out on a small scale and then grows to take on a life of its own which ultimately sweeps almost everything in its path brutalizing the few who dare to question or resist. With the media in their pockets it churns out narratives of the majority in mortal danger, a glorious civilization in peril from the rampaging barbarians (meaning jin logo ka jada bachcha hai) and stokes the flames of nationalistic pride steeped in dubious claims of economic prosperity which benefit only the very few at the top...
When that criminal Advani started his Rath yatra in 92 I was in college and instinctively I had felt that the poison that he helped spread would have long lasting consequences and what we are seeing now is almost a natural culmination with Modi-Shah destroying the very foundations of the pillars of a democracy. On a somewhat related note NY Times today carried a long article about how extremist ideology has taken root in Israel to the point where it's a normal ingredient of the collective Israeli psyche today... I fear BJP is moulding India in a similar shape and I can only pray it's not too late before the tide can be turned.
It is too late. How many Indian intellectuals, elite, liberals (liberandu - an ugly moniker given by the same right wingers, just like presstitutes and others) of yesteryears, who had morals, some principles say like Romila Thapar, or Irfan Habib or activists can really fight. Who to fight? How much? Look at Umar Khalid. There is no hope. It is us. This is us. We, the people who have allowed things to slide. In my lifetime it isn't going to change. The seeds were sown decades ago and the new shoots as well as old bears are baring extremist, hate riddled fangs. Check out the woman in Rae Bareli interviewed by Ajit Anjum - she is spouting WA University verbatim - she's afraid that her money (translated, mangalsutra) will be taken away. How can we fight this blind, logic-less faith? And when this man passes away, his successor will reap the benefits of this maddening madness of reverence. It's going to be decades before we slide back...and maybe by then there'll be other ideologies to contend with. I just need a country where I don't have to live with guilt, fear or shame and I don't want to feel like I need to cower because I have Muslim or Christian friends. It's not much of an ask, but it is.
I would be not so pessimistic! One kind of take is that the hatred and intolerance predominantly comes from either the privileged bigots, whose lives would be largely unaffected by who is in power, or economically insecure, who are exploited in the name of religion. If in the future, whenever there is a change in regime, if we can generate jobs and improve economic security, part of it will go away, hopefully limiting the long-term damage. In these elections, at least in my bubble, it is obvious that no party can be successful by just playing on religion alone - the story is bigger than that and we should not give up on hope for redemption.
Not giving up on hope, Mohan -- if that was the case I'd have stopped writing a long time ago, or stayed with the more lucrative option of writing on cricket. It is just an awareness that it is going to take a very long time to right this boat, is all. Like you, I still hope...and believe.
Isn't the most dangerous thing motabhai has achieved is to cultivate the goonda gangs of vhp and bajrangis for the minorities to rule the majority
The Guardian article was scary. I was very afraid even while sharing the link in my various WhatsApp groups. God save our country
The scary part is that we knew every single thing there is in that article -- each of the instances has made headlines at various times. (The CBI actually told the SC that Shah runs an extortion racket, for god's sake). We knew... and we allowed it to slide out of our memories, our consciousness.
What Dey's article does is to collect all those discrete dots, and connect them up, and show you the picture that emerges when you do connect the dots. (By the way, "connect the dots" is a basic tenet of journalism).
Exactly! The gist of the article is not exactly new but when all of it is put together it still is a chilling reminder of where we have ended up at this moment.
It reminded me of Aakar Patel's book, Price of Modi Years. I have it handy in my reference section, but when I first read it this was the same thought I had.
Back in the day I used to clip articles from newspapers and put them in labelled files. Once the Internet evolved and tools evolved with it, it became easier -- save to Evernote with tags, and more recently to Roam Research.
When I was reading Aakar's book the first time, I realised that almost every single data point, every discrete event he has talked about and linked to is in my online folders. His excellence was that he put them all together, thematically, to paint a bigger, grimmer picture.
useful to remind myself ot conect the dots, every now and again