thecatapult.in

Pakistan as India’s “Buffer” state is the incredible theory dreamed up by yet another member of the current Indian “intellectual” elite. it seems to be the norm among them to make up their mind first on any given topic and then cherry pick only those facts that fit their theory. This op-ed titled “Let’s wish them well” by Jaithirth Rao over the weekend continues in that hallowed tradition.

He writes

“My support for partition and for the continuance of a strong Pakistan stems from what I would call a practical sense of realpolitik. Pakistan is the buffer state that India needs to protect us from the hot-spots of Afghanistan and Persia (aka Iran). Less than three hundred years ago, we were invaded by Persians (led by Nadir Shah) and Afghans (led by Ahmed Shah Abdali). Both of these were in the nature of predatory raids. They did not result in conquests. But they did succeed in finishing off the glorious Moghul Empire and in causing considerable human and economic damage. It has been noted that a substantial portion of Afghan GDP derived from raids on India! Now as then, raids, unrest and related tensions are real dangers to us.

But let us breathe a sigh of relief. If today a Nadir Shah or an Abdali were to try to invade us, he would have to first defeat the legions of General Musharraf. In effect, the Pakistani army will protect us from the assembled forces beyond the Khyber. This is the kind of “outsourcing of our defence” that should really warm our hearts. Herein lies the overriding need for us to support the continuance of a strong Pakistani state and an effective Pakistani army.”

Sounds incredible and to be fair he actually seems to believe it himself for some reason. Read the rest…

If there is one trait that sets apart a Briton from the rest of the human species then it must definitely be an head still frozen in the permafrost of that last ice age that might somehow explain their chilling insensitivity to appreciate and respect the point of view and sensibilities of others.

One hundred and fifty years after the Indian soldiers in their employ in the armies of the East India Company along with a large part of the Indian population revolted against them for precisely that reason the Brits seem to have not yet learnt their lesson and now their descendants have arrived in India to “commemorate” the “bravery” of their ancestors by being exactly just as haughty and insensitive as their forefathers had been.

That rebellion happened exactly one hundred years after the Battle of Plassey gave the British East India Company a foothold in the eastern region of India in what is now the country of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal.From there over a period of several decades they steadily expanded their hold over the rest of the country on the backs of mostly Indian soldiers led by an exclusively White class of officers.

Denied promotions and avenues of career growth, routinely discriminated against, humiliated daily and forced to fight against and commit atrocities against their own people by the British over a period of a hundred years finally got too much to bear for the Indian soldiers and finally they had had enough. They raised the banner of revolt in the summer of 1857 when they felt that the Brits had gone too far this time and for six months fought valiantly and nearly brought an end to the British rule in India.

Read the rest…

In the guise of “Public opinion”. Buy it here

Barkha Dutt in an article on Mayawati’s victory in the UP elections has besmirched the entire blogging community as

Log on to the Internet, and you will be stunned to discover how many bloggers — anonymous, or otherwise — have worn their obvious bias on their computer screens. Some even write about wanting to “leave India if Mayawati ever became Prime Minister” — all this without a trace of irony or shame. Their delusion is not just offensive; it’s positively frightening.

Barkha dutt is plain wrong. There is no such unanimous hostility among the bloggers towards Mayawati that Barkha dutt refers to. On the other hand this was one of the many blogs which welcomed Mayawati’s election victory either cautiously or wholeheartedly even taking into account all her faults and along with the realisation that she won’t be any better a politician than most of her counterparts across the rest of the political spectrum. A balance Ms Barkha towards the end of her article hopes that her own journalistic fraternity will be able to strike. Thus her generalisation of all bloggers as anti-Mayawati falls flat right here.

Perhaps Ms Barkha Dutt would do well to specifically say who are the ones she considers to be at fault. Like any blogger worth his/her salt it would be nice if she actually links to the posts of those she is critiquing. Otherwise such “hit and run” type of yellow Journalism where she makes a sweeping generalisation of such a vast and varied group of individuals simply doesn’t reflect well on her either as an ethical person or professionally as a journalist.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time Ms Barkha dutt has tried to smear the entire blogging community with no evidence to back up her claims and this probably might not be her last. But this latest antic of hers has only strengthened the widespread public perception that the Indian mainstream media is already ploughing the depths of depravity and simply cannot be trusted to provide objective coverage of any subject whatsoever. This is one of the reasons for the continuing rise of the blogs as an alternative medium to the 24/7 drivel dished out by the mainstream media and could well be the beginning of the end of the mainstream media’s monopoly on shaping public opinion which they have enjoyed till recently. The sooner that happens the better.

Update- Prasanna Vishy has tracked down the person who made the comment which Barkha dutt found so offensive. Here it is in all its glory.

Priyanka Gandhi is far away. Rahul Gandhi has failed. Manmohan Singh is a puppet. I am aware that were a Lalu or a Mayawati were ever to become PM, I would have to choose to leave the country.

And this one does not come from any random blogger who in Barkha dutt’s own words is either anonymous or otherwise but a well known journalist from her rival channel CNN-IBN. His name is Hindol Sengupta and he wrote this article titled ‘Why I’am afraid of Mayawati’ in his signed blog hosted on the CNN-IBN website.

Looks like Barkha dutt is trying to kill two birds with one stone. She gets to hit back at her professional rival and also at the same time tries to malign the entire blogging community. Smart girl.very, very cunning i must say.

The Negotiations to formalize the Indo-US Nuke treaty with a 123 agreement has hit a roadblock. The Indians seem to have developed a spine and a sense of purpose and Uncle Sam is not very happy about it.

Indo-US Nuke treaty negotiations in a Soup

The (American) officials are incensed that India played hardball at the negotiations, with New Delhi continuing to express concern over certain provisions of the enabling legislation approved by Congress and signed into law by President Bush in December.

Amazing really! The Indian MEA actually has a backbone.

But the Indian Media as usual(including the rest of the above rediff column) is batting for the other side and begging the Indian negotiators to capitulate. ToI has an editorial today titled ‘Agni Pariksha‘ begging the Indian side to give in, rollover and play dead.It is not yet posted on their website. But one can pick a copy from the newsstand today. It is a shameful read. devoid of logic or substance. Their main line of argument is

1. It is a pity to let it fall on the last mile.

2. A combination of “concessions” from both sides and some “creative face-saving gestures” should suffice to see the deal through.

3. It is unlikely for example that India is going to conduct more nuclear tests

4. And ofcourse nothing ends without a swipe at the scientists and technical experts who the ToI editorial dismisses as having a “blinkered vision” and “all-or-nothing approach” and not being sophisticated enough to “appreciate political realities” .

For starters there is no room for emotions. This treaty is a serious matter which could affect India’s military preparedness in the face of two nuclear armed foes with whom India has fought 4 wars, one limited conflict and various skirmishes and still has unresolved territorial disputes. The only option for India in this critical situation is a strong credible nuclear deterrent of its own. And this treaty if not properly negotiated could seriously impair India’s strategic deterrent capability.

The Point No 2 is pathetic. This is the same rehash of the discredited Panchsheel type thinking and we know which side ends up doing all the “concessions” and the “face saving gestures” and their consequences.

Point No 3 is again a mess. A bunch of journalists from an non-scientific background (sorry for this swipe, no offence meant) can never understand how complex scientific systems really are. They are so used to switching on their computers and gadgets everyday and seeing it work without any problems that they never see the thousands of hours of rigorous testing that goes in to make those devices robust and workable in the real world before it comes into their hand.Every bit of equipment whether it is a small IC chip to complex systems like computers, software etc… needs to be continually tested, monitored and updated.

And a nuclear weapon is a serious piece of equipment.Thousands of times more complex and intricate than your desktop PC or Ipod. Without continual testing there is no way any serious scientist or technical expert will certify that the Nuclear weapon will actually do its stuff when it is used in a military situation. So that is where the CTBT and FMCT comes in. It is designed to make sure that no one else besides the P-5 get to build and maintain a nuclear arsenal.

India therefore is correct to insist on its right to test. If we surrender this right our nuclear deterrence will lose its teeth and become nothing but a dud. Pakistan and China have access to the nuclear weapons designs from the hundreds of Chinese nuclear tests done till 1996.What do we have till date? Data from a mere Six nuclear tests!

And regarding point no 4. What is good for the goose is also good for the gander. The Indian media and “intellectuals” can be accussed of having the same shortcomings.Having a “blinkered vision” and “all-or-nothing approach” and not being sophisticated enough to appreciate “technical realities”.

Update: ToI op-ed Agni-Pariksha, now available online.

A former member of an radical Islamist terrorist group, Jemaah Islamiya, a group affiliated to Al-Qaeda, Dr Tawfik Hamid has severely criticised the liberal “intellectuals” and self proclaimed “progressives” for obfuscating the threat of radical Islamist ideology to the world at large and also being an obstacle to reformation in the Islamic world.His criticism also holds good for our own homegrown “intellectuals”.

Yet it is ironic and discouraging that many non-Muslim, Western intellectuals–who unceasingly claim to support human rights–have become obstacles to reforming Islam. Political correctness among Westerners obstructs unambiguous criticism of Shariah’s inhumanity. They find socioeconomic or political excuses for Islamist terrorism such as poverty, colonialism, discrimination or the existence of Israel. What incentive is there for Muslims to demand reform when Western “progressives” pave the way for Islamist barbarity? Indeed, if the problem is not one of religious beliefs, it leaves one to wonder why Christians who live among Muslims under identical circumstances refrain from contributing to wide-scale, systematic campaigns of terror.

Western feminists duly fight in their home countries for equal pay and opportunity, but seemingly ignore, under a façade of cultural relativism, that large numbers of women in the Islamic world live under threat of beating, execution and genital mutilation, or cannot vote, drive cars and dress as they please.

Ouch! that hurts especially when it is one of those former “misguided youths” who is taking a potshot at thee.

Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyar’s columns was one of the few things on ToI that i used to think was worth reading. But nowadays even he seems to have struck the rock bottom of mediocrity and digging furiously.

What should one say after reading this hair brained Column of his where he talks about the “Hidden Social cost” of vehicles?!

One of his gems

Vehicular pollution causes smog that makes it impossible for planes to land in Delhi in winter, forcing them to travel to distant airports to dump their disgruntled passengers. This imposes high costs on the passengers, the airlines, and on tourism. India has barely scratched the surface of world tourism: it gets four million tourists per year, against China’s 124 million. Yet, vehicular pollution strikes right at the peak of the tourist season. The cost to tourism must be huge.

And afterall this

I am not among those who want cars to be abolished and replaced entirely by buses and trams.

I believe in the freedom of people to travel where and when they want.

But this freedom imposes a wide array of hidden costs on a city economy, and car-owners should pay these costs in full. Otherwise we will be subsidising pollution, fuel adulteration, congestion, respiratory disease, and the disappearance of green spaces.

In other words tax the cars out of the roads than an outright ban, that will look so much like a seedy latin americanish banana republic.

One would like to ask him whether they teach Logic in “intellectual” schools? Or is he having a nostalgia attack for the good old socialist days?

His is a sure fire recipe to kill off middle class car ownership and make it the exclusive privilege of the Rich and the Political/Bureaucratic class just like the old days of the socialist raj.

Instead for a change why not prepare some points on the positives of car ownership? How about increased Safety for families who are inside cars rather than dangling in precarious angles along with their monthly rations on a Bajaj scooter? and what does he have to say about many people opting for cars running on LPG, directly cutting both pollution and fuel costs and has he heard about the increasing number of multi-level car parks springing up in cities across India to cater to the market demand for more parking space?

What about the thousands of people from poor families who are getting jobs in auxillary industries like Service stations, car washes, as Mechanics, security guards etc… Why not count that as “hidden benefits” of car ownership? And why does he not ask his favourite government to replace their own outdated smoke spewing vehicle fleets with more fuel efficient Euro-3 compliant vehicles? that will certainly help with the smog that he is so much worried about. And who does most of the fuel adulteration? the Auto and taxi drivers or the “evil”, “bourgoise” Middle class car owners who keep their car engines tuned to wring out every extra mile out of every last drop of petrol?

The real intention of his column seems to be nothing but a trial ballon to propose imposing some new taxes on vehicle owners. Mr Aiyar gives the game away here.

There is little appreciation among politicians or the middle class of the huge social cost of cars. They cannot see that huge subsidies, mostly hidden, are being ladled out to car-owners. These need to be abolished and replaced with user charges or taxes that reflect the full social cost of cars. The Left front, which once supported high taxes on petrol, now acts as though petrol is a Fundamental Right. So does Sonia Gandhi. And so the government hands out Rs 25,000 crore to oil companies to keep the price of cooking and transport fuels low.

Sounds familiar? This Social justice drama of the “intellectuals” is getting more and more ridiculous by the day.

On a related note. One of the Global warming sceptics in the CH4 documentary ‘The Great Global Warming Swindle’ noted that “If you want a grant to study Squirrels, there is no money around. But if you prepare a project proposal saying that you want to study the effect of Global warming on Squirrels then money materialises instantly”

Similarly today in India, If you can present any of your pet proposals with a “social justice” angle attached to it then there is a big chance of it getting wide currency and even adopted. Just try reading Mr Aiyar’s proposal minus his “social justice” angle and one gets the picture.

This is called ‘The Great Indian Social Justice Swindle’.

This week saw three events in quick succession involving India’s accursed communists, the first was the beastly act in Nandigram in West Bengal where the communists are in power and using the machinery of the state butchered the common man in the dozens with all the accompanying claptrap, gaudy red rhetoric that it was for their own good in true classical Soviet-Chinese-Khmer Rouge style, the next in Chhattisgarh where another more “purer” and virulent strain of the same gutter virus, this one known to toxicologists as the ‘Naxalite(Maoist)’ strain murdered more than 50 policemen in cold blood because they were agents of the state, and ofcourse the one involving the more domesticated, scotch and soda sipping, suave, but always obstructive and a no do-gooder “mainstream” political outfit which this time contented itself by “merely trying” to assault and manhandle a minister of the Union government in the very heart of Indian democracy- the hall of the parliament itself!

As repulsive and disgusting as the above incidents are the response of the so called watchdog of democracy, the mainstream media and the self appointed “secular” conscience keepers of the country, the “intellectuals”, assorted NGO’s and the human terrorist rights mafia is even more disgusting. Their one line excuse on behalf of their comrades for each one of the above incidents -It is the other guy’s fault.

Read the rest…

While it is sadly true that the Dalits have historically suffered a lot because of the caste based prejudice against them and everyone agrees that this legacy remains a shameful blot on our society as a whole. Nevertheless it is disingenuous for any one, no matter how aggrieved they feel, to make up some baseless theories not grounded in facts.

One such example is this interview of a Dalit activist and Ex-Naxalite member Mr Chandra Bhan Prasad. He claims that the Indian languages carry the legacy of centuries of Caste prejudice within them and hence the Dalits should give up all the Indian languages and adopt English instead.

Perhaps Mr Prasad has not yet realised that if one extends his own theory, even the English language too will be found to carry the legacies of slavery, genocide, colonialism and racism within it. Or perhaps he feels that since all that happened to somebody else like native Americans, Black Africans and Australian Aborigines, one can conveniently overlook it.

In Hindi, to greet somebody we say pranam. The person bows down and there is a kind of body coordination like the folding of hands and bowing down of the head when he or she says pranam.

According to Indian tradition, Dalits don’t have the right to receive pranam . Because the receiver of the pranam had the right to bless, so Dalits never received pranams. In response, the person responds with ‘khush raho (be happy).

I want to emphasis the fact that how Indian languages — be it Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Tamil or Malayalam — all of them carry the legacy of caste. But if you replace Hindi or Tamil by English you will greet by saying ‘good morning.’ The other person will respond saying ‘good morning’. Both will look into the eyes and equality is established.

If that was even remotely true then surely Blacks, native Americans and Australian Aborigines would have attained equal rights centuries before in their own societies. But sadly that has not been the case even to this day. One has to understand that Language whether it is English, Chinese, Zulu, Hindi or whatever is merely a means of expression. It does not have an existence on its own and hence blaming it for the crimes of its speakers is incorrect.

There are too many caste-based abuses in India. People say chori-chamari na karna. (Don’t steal like the chamars, who are the lowest caste amongst the Dalits). In the countryside these abuses are quite common, even now. “I’ll make you a bhangi(sweeper caste)!” — is quite often used as a threat.

In Hindi films and television serials they have slightly modified these age-old abuses. They now say chori-chakari na karna. It hurts us. Analyse it with a little sensitivity. These abuses are meant for us only; it reflects the mindset of Indians.

In that case even the English language has racist epithets for nearly every ethnic and religious group in the world.So would he advise all those affected groups to follow his example and give up speaking the English language? That they should cut themselves off from all the opportunities for advancement it offers in today’s world, which he himself goes on to describe in the rest of the interview

When you speak English it so happens that you dress up differently. I get invited to parties and when I speak in English people talk differently and are even ready to listen to me.

What I speak, if spoken in Hindi, doesn’t make an impact at all. I am dismissed but if I say the same things in English, I am heard and applauded. Also, you may have noticed that English-speaking people tend to wear suits and matching shoes. Better dressing elevates your position and makes you heard.

If he had instead made a case that more and more Dalits should aim to get Higher education to move up the social ladder and for that a good, fluent working knowledge of English is most essential in today’s world, he would have made better sense than by baselessly claiming that all Indian languages are vehicles of caste prejudice and hence should be shunned entirely.

Read the rest…

Five years after the horrific Godhra incident and its aftermath, there has been created according to Mr K.P.S. Gill, a virtual ‘Gujarat Riots industry’ consisting of left leaning politicians, NGO’s, the Media and assorted “intellectuals” who indulge in whipping up flagging passions at every opportunity, and manufacturing a range of ‘products’ that are marketed principally to foreign ‘buyers’. He says that

During and after the Gujarat riots, the role of political actors, non-governmental organisations and ‘activists’, was nothing short of shameful. There was a lot of posturing, a great deal of tamasha, but little was done to bring relief to the victims. Group after group flew into Ahmedabad, went through the motions of ‘investigation’, held press conferences and brought out ill-informed reports, but nobody stayed long enough to deliver concrete services and succour to those whose lives had been shattered and dislocated. In certain political quarters, there was almost an implicit hope that the violence would continue, so that it could be exploited electorally.

All this while the incident that started it all, i.e., Godhra train burning which killed nearly 58 Hindu pilgrims, including 35 women and children is sought to be played down or denied by this very same actors. But why is one set of victims given all the attention and sympathy while the suffering of the other set is sought to be played down, denied, glossed over or even vilified? One such politically motivated report by the Banerjee commission was ruled illegal by the Gujarat High court.

Read the rest…