अब तो यह पूरी तरह साफ़ हो गया है के 21 वीं सदी की शायद सबसे बड़ी महामारी बनने जा रहे कोरोना नामक वायरस का जन्म वामपंथियों के चौथे पिता (पहले मार्क्स दुसरे लेनिन तीसरे स्टालिन) माओ जेडोंग की पितृभूमि और वामपंथियों का मक्का कहे जाने वाले चीन में हुआ है। ये बता दें के चीन में 1949 से लगातार कम्युनिस्ट पार्टी की सत्ता रही है। एक आंकड़े के मुताबिक़ अब तक केवल चीनी वामपंथी 8 करोड़ से ज़्यादा जाने ले चुके हैं। परन्तु इन नरभक्षियों की रक्त पीने की क्षमता इतनी ज़्यादा है के 8 करोड़ लाशों से भी इनका पेट न भरा। तानाशाही व्यवस्था वाले चीन से यूँ तो ज़्यादा खबरें बाहर नहीं आतीं, परन्तु इस बार कुछ अंतर्राष्ट्रीय मीडिया में ये खबरें छपी है के कोरोना वायरस का निर्माण चीन की प्रयोगशालाओं में पूरी तरह एक ख़ास रणनीति के तहत किया गया था।
और ये खबरें इसलिए भी सत्य प्रतीत होती है क्यूंकी जिस दिन पूरा भारत कोरोना से लड़ने के लिए ‘जनता कर्फ्यू’ की तयारी कर रहा था उसी समय बस्तर के जंगलो में छुपकर रहने वाले आदमखोर पशु जिन्हे नक्सली भी कहा जाता है द्वारा 17 भारतीय सिपाहियों पर हमला कर उनकी निर्मम हत्या कर दी जाती है।
यहां ये भी बताना ज़रूरी है के एक आंकड़े के मुताबिक़ अब तक ये आदमखोर पशु जिन्हे नक्सली भी कहा जाता है, भारत देश में 12000 से ज़्यादा भारतीयों की श्वासक्रिया को रोक चुके हैं तो तभी ये पूछने पर मजबूर होना पड़ता है के, लाल सलाम से लाल कोरोना तक! और कितनी जानें लोगे वामपंथियों?
The Coronavirus pandemic is going to go down the history lane as one of the biggest, a multi-trillion dollar scam, mankind has ever witnessed. Not only this, the pandemic now has opened new ways for research and innovation oriented governments to induce major disruptions and economic recessions as per their will.
How?
SARS-COV-2 the virus responsible for COVID-19 is not the first coronavirus that we are witnessing and is definitely not the last coronavirus that we will be witnessing. Bats, the only mammals that can fly, are said to host many such viruses; to date around 200 different coronaviruses have been detected. How and when some of these viruses spillover to humans is not known. So, when someone says the virus spread because of this or that, he/she is simply spreading fake news. And no one can say it for sure, if the current virus strand SARS-COV-2 was circulating among Humans before Nov-Dec 2019.
Every time a country or an institute succeeds with a research and is able to isolate a new virus, there is a crisis; be it SARS or MERS or any other. There was a similar chaos but on a smaller level, the other motivations for creating a worldwide chaos were missing at the time. These viruses are still out there, and we still don’t have the vaccines for them. But why are we not scared of them the way we are scared of SARS-COV-2? In fact there aren’t vaccines for a lot of viruses that have RNA (ribonucleic acid) as their genetic material. Do we have a vaccine for HIV? No; Maleria? No; SARS/MERS? No; But we are not scared of them today. Why?
We are scared of SARS-COV-2 because we are made to feel that way. Some people, companies, or governments are cleverly inciting this fear to accomplish their individual goals. And modern day money minded and business oriented journalism has made it a cake walk for them.
As per a time magazine study there were 23 times more articles in English-language print news covering the coronavirus outbreak in its first month compared to the same time period for the Ebola epidemic in 2018, I din’t even know there was such an outbreak in 2018, did you? Moreover, a professor at Cardiff University studied the type of information conveyed by 100 most popular newspaper from January 12 to February 13 of this year and found that there were more than nine thousands articles published on this virus out of which over one thousand used words like “fear” or “afraid” or other fear related words. The type of language that has been used would incite fear in anyone who reads it, one example from The Telegraph “Mask-wearing patients fainting in the street. Hundreds of fearful citizens lining cheek by jowl, at risk of infecting each other, in narrow hospital corridors as they wait to be treated by doctors in forbidding white hazmat suits. A fraught medic screaming in anguish.” The Sun’s coronavirus liveblog routinely refers to the virus as a “deadly disease”. SARS is deadly because the media houses say so, and flu is just cold and cough because they don’t say it is killer. What comes in mind when you hear flu? Its seasonal, its nothing to worry about. Right? However the reality is that it is killing in between 250,000 to 650,000 every single year. Compare the deaths yourself. Moreover, I did the comparison in my last blog: The unwarranted fear of Coronavirus!, please have a look, I also mentioned why the mortality rates are misleading. As a matter of fact, some experts (here and here) have also started saying the same thing, however the major, the more popular big media houses are not interested in highlighting their views.
In addition to this, not only by the language they use, they are constantly forcing people to think about coronavirus and death. The news channels are literally keeping a score board on the one of the corners or their screens, that displays a text like “India 150 cases – 3 deaths and World 216k cases and 7k deaths“. Is this some kind of a match (150/3 and 216k/7k) going on? I shouldn’t be saying this but a lot of people die every day because of a lot of other pathogens but when you start counting one by one, every thing looks big.
However, having said that, there is more than just shooting the messenger. Messengers are doing what the masters have asked them to do. Coronavirus pandemic is synonymous with falling economy; Quarantine, Isolation, Lock-Downs, Panic-Fear etc etc are going kill the economy. Right?
WRONG!
Coronavirus pandemic is a cover-up for the flawed fundamentals of the global financial lenders.
Kristalina Georgieva, in her first speech as IMF head in October 2019, just before the oubreak mentioned the rising corporate debts. Companies around world need to repay or refinance as much as $4trillion over next three years. The lenders had cut borrowing costs in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis in order to avert the last recession turning into another great depression. And now, when the central banks have increased the rates, it increased the risk that companies could run into difficulty keeping up with repayments.
Chinese company debt in particular has rapidly accelerated, raising alarm bells as the level of corporate borrowing soared to reach $2.8trillion by the end of 2018, up by as much as 395% compared to a decade ago. The Economist Intelligence Unit said there was a “moderate risk” that the US debt burden would turn the next economic downturn into a recession.
A basket of nearly 7,000 stocks including developed, emerging and frontier markets have lost nearly $6 trillion (compare it with the corporate debt) or more than 10% of their value since Monday, according to Refinitiv DataStream. The companies can now easily repay their debts, since the stake holders will either not sell their shares or maybe buy more. These companies lost only the “market valuation” but the investors’ either lost the money or their money is locked for who knows how long. Infact, if you look at the very first entry S&P 500, it had just hit a record high in October. And now, the stock tops the list in correction.
An article published by Forbes in October 2019 “The countries on the Brink of recession in 2020” that is before the coronavirus, the list of countries is quite interesting (this is one of many articles that say these countries were staring at an imminent recession, feel free to google for more articles): Hong Kong, China, Germany, Italy, Iran, the US, the UK; they were going through their own issues be it geo-political crisis or a trade war cum research and innovation race or Brexit or anything else. But they were facing serious issues.
What a coincidence! the countries that were facing serious issues fall in the top ten in the list of countries hit hard by the pandemic.
It is in great interest of some governments to portray it as “world is going to end unless you isolate yourself” kind of disease. The economic damage this pandemic will cause in future is the price that they are willing to pay to cover up the mess that is already there.According to their narrative, “if the country has less cases, they are not testing enough; or they will be the next hot spot“. One of the reasons why WHO is currently asking the countries to test for COVID-19 more and more, is to get a big number. Out of all, WHO would be the one who knows if the similar kind of extensive testing is done for any other virus, the numbers would be comparable. And it also knows that these kind of coronaviruses transmit in the exact same manner. But they are showing only a part of the picture.
Not surprisingly, the impartial or unbiased WHO exposed itself when it had issues when Donald Trump called it a “Chinese Virus”, however, the same WHO did not see it as racism when the virus was called MERS-COV (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome) as the virus first detected in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia or naming a virus as HCOV-NL63 (first identified in Netherlands) or hCoV-HKU1 (first identified in Hong Kong). And of course, the western media’s affection towards Donald Trump needs no introduction.
China started a “Death Race” by putting an entire city in lock-down, if they won’t have done this, it wouldn’t have sought the type of attention the virus received. And now when a chain reaction is triggered, they think they reshape the global order. The other countries following the same suit will falter because they unlike China are democracies. They won’t be able to dictate the situation like Chinese did. Whistle blowers, push back from the residents who lost their livelihood during the lock-down, protest for the people who died not because of coronavirus but because of hunger would not sit quiet in a Democracy.
Identification of a new virus is just an opportunity for course correction. If it was not the virus, it would have been something else.
After a very very long time, Indian government was doing good in terms of fixing the fundamental issues with the country and especially the debt. As per IMF “India’s debt is below the average of advanced economies and below the average of emerging market economies“. But the reforms and changes in the last few years, didn’t come easy, they put a dent in the growth. Now when it looked like things were improving, there is an artificially induced recession. Indian government like many other governments is in between a devil and a deep sea. If it doesn’t follow what others are doing, it will be called irresponsible as soon as one more person tests positive. If does, what others are doing, the economy suffers and the damage would be pinned on the reforms that were done and not the pandemic, thanks to a “wonderful” political culture. By promoting the western narrative, Indian media is actually acting against its own country. They have limited themselves to be mere promoters of the western media. Or even translators – have a look at this Aaj Tak clip and then compare it with this BBC article, except the language everything is the same. They should have at least tried to counter the narrative.
Precautions are necessary, basic hygiene is necessary, correct information is necessary but coming to a standstill, trying to stop everything that moves is unwarranted.
The Fringe is hurting. And it is angry. Very angry.
For too long if there is one thing that has remained undemocratic in our country it is privilege. Privilege has been the preserve of few. And it is these few who constitute the fringe in our social ecosystem. Small in number but high on influence, this fringe made the rules of the game for all to play. At least till now.
From time to time this fringe was challenged
and sometimes it even conceded defeat or yielded temporary territory. But each
time it bounced back because of its remarkable seed like quality to secrete
around its safely ensconced position a protective sheath that insulated it from
any threat. A combination of civil society tools such as academia, lit fests, activism,
NGOs and the like made this protective sheath that kept the fringe dormant but alive
in adverse situations and allowed it to germinate once conditions became favorable.
But this time the fringe realizes that the
danger is for real and perhaps existential. The hard sheath is under
unrelenting attack and risks being cracked open or perhaps already has in some
places. The fringe, which till now was secure inside has spilled out and is faced
with a rustic social milieu where their rules are being challenged. It is putting
up brave front, but clearly fighting with its back to the wall and in an
uncomfortable battle terrain for the first time.
Every part of the ecosystem has its own fringe
and It is easy to spot the “Battle of the Fringe” being played out around us.
The fringe among politicians are understandably most upset. After all the assault of assaults has been on them. Rank upstarts, outsiders and first timers with no political pedigree are aspiring to be politicians and becoming ministers, Chief Ministers and even Prime Ministers! Pedigree no longer guarantees a ticket. Safe seats are not safe anymore. Constituency demands rigorous 24×365 hard work and occasional Heli-dropping holidays are not considered cute. Intellect not muscle and work not money are slowly emerging as winnability criteria. And the political fringe doesn’t like this new paradigm. They romanticize the old days and old ways and want them back and are battling hard. With their backs to the wall they are punching with vengeance and from EC to EVM and everything in between is on their target.
Bureaucracy has its own angry fringe. The steel
frame has rusted, the much overdue repair has begun, and the rusty parts are
squeaking loudly as they are dismantled. The new frame will be of advanced
material, stronger and modular. But more importantly, entry criteria like JNU and
Kapital may not guarantee a permanent nest. Lateral entry is particularly
sacrilegious for this fringe. After all for them, how can acquiring specific expertise
on Artificial Intelligence, Macro Economics be more difficult than giving that
perfect rendition of Yeats, Shelly, Coleridge and Wordsworth? And that too in
Her Majesty’s own accent? The bureaucratic fringe is angry. And they are
fighting back by using the most reliable weapon in their armoury; procedure over result. Carping over obvious operational
challenges that are bound to arise in the all-round structural change from DeMo
to GST is added reinforcement.
The fringe among judiciary is not behind in feeling angered. Truly privileged, theirs is the only fraternity that is neither elected nor selected but have arrogated to themselves the comfortable process of co-opting members to their cozy collegium. A fringe within judiciary has even established successful judicial dynasties. Change may threaten such privileges. There is just too much discussion on activism, overreach, independence, accountability and post retirement jobs. Fewer opportunities on time-bound commissions are not attractive anymore. PILs hitherto considered conscientious are considered a nuisance and NGOs of star lawyers are under a cloud of doubt. The fringe among judiciary is angry that their walnut paneled chambers may not be restricted to just “people like us”. And they are fighting back, albeit with soft gloves and within the boundary of expected civility, largely through issue-based posturing.
Perhaps the most voluble and visibly angry are the fringe in the fourth estate. Just when star journalists from mainstream media were looking forward to “Senior Journalist” tags and Rajya Sabha nominations, technology dealt them a mean blow. Overnight their “one to many” hegemony was wiped out by the “many to many” character of social media. Every netizen is potential journalist, nimble content rich digital platforms are the preferred new mainstream media and savvy news-makers prefer a direct to audience route. Add to this the ignominy of having to rely on social media even for the smallest breaking news doesn’t make fringe journalists happy. They want their priority access cards restored, their junkets aboard PM-One to resume and power to broker headlines back and they are battling hard. But the character of their battle is complex. Fighting social media by using social media is not an easy task.
The fringe among intelligentsia is also angry and is battling hard. They are a cocktail of those who have contributed to specific fringe causes in their prime. The list is predictable NGO’s, professors, curated authors, award recipients, retired members from all four pillars of our system, preforming artists and the likes. All of known ideological proclivity. The intelligentsia is the soft connecting bridge to the larger society and an effective thought conveyor. The fringe amongst intelligentsia know its importance and don’t want their old bridge replaced with a new. But their battle is on borrowed resources and not on its own strength. And at this time the resources are few. Yet they are doing their bit for the fringe cause. The tools are predictable; Lit fests, award shows, book reviews, sundry talk shows and debates.
Even the social fringe is angry. Qualifying criteria for social climb have changed. Vernacs are also polyglots, small townees seem to be more driven, everybody is going on a foreign holiday, Yoga is fashionable over Zoomba and the “oh so middle class” dig doesn’t tickle a funny bone anymore. Diligence is gaining ground over inheritance. Watchman Bahadur’s son and driver Dhana’s daughter seem to be doing just fine but Pappu still can’t dance salaa! And popsicle poppas and martini mommas making up this social fringe are unhappy and indignant at this changed social milieu.
The battle of the fringe is being played out in
every corner of our social ecosystem. The fringe does not like to be called
fringe and perhaps rightly so considering the influence they wielded. But rules
of the game are changing. As society gets homogenized by the forces of
technology, education and opportunity privileges will not remain the exclusive
preserve of few.
And the Fringe will have no option but to merge
with the Whole….
All those who care, watch/listen to this 8 minute message from Dr. Emily Landon, a medical professional on infectious diseases from Illinois. (https://youtu.be/JIA41ZBbCfk). She delivered a simple message as a mother and daughter too. It has gained huge traction and gone viral, as it deserves to. She spoke with passion and her powerful exposition seems to have touched the hearts and more importantly, the minds of her brothers and sisters, across America and the world. She spoke at the invitation of the Illinois State Governor, in the United States, to explain the ‘why’ for the shutdown of the State.
Remember, it is America, the land of the free. Statue of Liberty welcomes one and all, as it is a nation of immigrants. Liberty of the individual shines above all other rights, and that right is never to be trifled with. And the Liberals who always cacophonously remind us of it, saying that societal rights had to yield to the individual’s, as the ordinary American was at the very core of Constitutional values. That is why New York Governor Andrew Cuomo was extremely vary and hesitant to embrace it, until Florida Governor brazened it first. Illinois has followed and other States are due to join.
The US administration has been most reluctant to talk of ‘total shutdown’, like Italy, France, Germany, France and Spain have been constrained to go for. Boris Johnson in the UK is finding it difficult, as even closure of Pubs and Restaurants were protested against. (It is claimed that this never happened even during the Hitler virus. Why now?). Boris has urged children to refrain from visiting their mothers on Mothers’ Day as a ‘gift’ to them, by not being a possible carrier of the dangerous Corona Virus. In Australia, the Bondi Beach was full of revelers, which compelled the Australian Health Minister to take note and ban it from access.
The African continent is just starting to feel the impact, and health professionals warn that the spread could be devastatingly fast, in the face of the density of the populace. We need to juxtapose the call of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in the wake of these developments, the world over. Media, be it print, electronic, social is overwhelmed with Covid-19 news, including the inevitable #fakenews. News anchors, after adverting to the coronavirus linked news then say “now to news not related to coronavirus”, which is confined to the last few minutes of any hourly bulletin, over news outlets. 90% plus news is occupied by Covid-19. It is that big.
The news is not only health related. The obvious, natural and logical impact is on the economies of the world. Donald J Trump had not stopped proclaiming to the world and his own Base, in particular that “Our economy is booming. The tax cuts I promised and delivered has had cascading impacts by putting more in the hands of the investors, and that means that employment rate is now at its lowest historically. The Dow Jones Index has never had it to good and that is what I promised, when I chose to Make America Great Again”. That is until, Covid-19 hit America hard, out of the blue. Now, the threatened impact on the economy is a negative 20% and unemployment rate has already trebled.
Initially, Donald J Trump, with his typical bravado, repeated ad nauseam that “Coronavirus was a hoax. It is perpetrated as a huge influence by the Do Nothing Democrats’ conspiracy”. And his megaphone Fox Television owned by the Australian media mogul Rupert Murdoch, went to town echoing Trump’s fake lines. They assumed that America was insulated. It was a virus that hit Wuhan and China from the wet meat market selling Bats and Pangolins as delicacies and their own homeland needed nothing to fear at all.
And then as Italy
was hit hard, Spain followed, France and Germany took notice and even the
Scandinavian nations were not left out, and Trump’s follower Boris Johnson, so
to say, was also forced to act, the Trump pivot has been on. A Covid19 Task
Force with the Vice President Pence was formed and the medical community and
scientists who had been shouting from the roof tops, were at long last heard.
And now the ‘total
shutdown’ across 50 States in the US has become a reality. The Florida Governor
admonished his citizens for ‘freaking out to the beaches. Grow up, he said. No
one is immune. Even if you do not care for your own well being, have a heart and
care for others. Your own parents, grandmas and grandpas. Stop this nonsense
and get home quick and stay there until we say it’s ok to get out. Let us do
our work to flatten the curve before the Covid19 becomes the Spanish flu or the
Black Death or the Bubonic Plague, in impact. Let us not mess with nature.”
That is the strong
and stern message that Dr. Emily Landon sugar coated to communicate to the hearts
and minds of every one. Has the message got home” Are the citizens listening?
We will know in a while as the virus is spreading its tentacles, all over the
place. Trump’s taunt of China at christening it the Chinese virus, may have resonance
over his base it certainly has no sway over the virus. The virus knows no
nationality or any other borders. It has no religious, caste, creed, sex
differences to catch. The economic bite on USA is biting Trump’s booming
American economy, as the US Congress is debating a trillion dollar bail out
package, including depositing $1200 dollars to the individual families.
The economic
impact this time round is nothing like the 1930 depression or the 2008 sub
prime financial crisis. It is far bigger with a humongous drag on the economies,
impacting every household, particularly those on the margins, lower middle
class and those below the poverty line. Economic theories are going for a toss
as the US Fed has reduced the bank rate to Zero- yes Zero. The question now is
would they go lower? It is that serious a crisis the world is facing. The British
Chancellor Rishi Sunak (son in law of Mr. N R Narayanamurthy) has announced a
dole to every family and he has promised more.
We have a
different economy and mindset. We are trained and tutored to save. Unlike the
westerners all of us, do not look for the pay packet next week for our very survival.
Not all of us. We have stored for the rainy day and it is here. That is a huge
comfort and subsidy for Modi administration to tuck into, to take care of the
needy and poor ignoring the rest above the poverty line. The Middle class
matters and surely now, for this very reason. Let it be told loud and big.
It is in such a scenario that Narendra Modi came out with his Janatha Curfew. He is a consummate politician. He knows he has the ears of the majority of ordinary Indian population. But, he has to get over the Media and the opposition noise, which has made it their mission to oppose anything Modi 2.0 comes up with. But, Covid-19 is too serious to ignore. Modi went public on air, to seek the co operation of his Priya Bharatiya to practice Janatha Curfew voluntarily. It was no Bandh. No forced shutdown. In Italy and Spain, the Police and Army are enforcing the lockdown. Not in India.
In Netherlands and Denmark, the Police are imposing fines on citizens who are defying such shutdowns. In India, Narendra Modi knew it would not sell to impose from above. Immediate response would have been to defy and dissent, as it was ‘their democratic right to do so’. Instead, he has appealed to the moral conscience of We The people, which has a cultural connect of being in the DNA, no matter the denial from the naysayers. The result is the Janata Curfew on 22nd March, 2020, on Sunday, which the world networks are talking about as a ‘successful and effective shutdown worthy of emulation elsewhere’. We obliged Modi to heed his call. We may need to continue to, as long as this threat lasts. Would We? But he needs to respond with an economic package to particularly take care of the poor and the vulnerable. Would he?
(Narasimhan Vijayaraghavan-author is practising advocate in the Madras High Court)
United, We Shall Overcome. Yes, we are 1.3 Billion strong. Our demographic dividend can be a killer too. The numbers we have, matter. In this Coronavirus Covid-19 time, academicians have called it a “Pearl Harbour Moment”. Sit where you are. Practice social distancing. The risk of being infected by the virus, fast spreading its tentacles worldwide can be stopped in its tracks. The emphasis is now on flattening the curve. Why do our numbers matter? They matter because the spread can be too fast and deadly.
Recorded facts, undisputed across sources, is that the virus first hit Hubei province of China on Nov 17th. Regretfully, the Chinese administration, typically, sought to play their Tiananmen game, and the result is before us. Be that as it may, take the case of United States led by its maverick President Donald J Trump who initially dismissed Covid19 as a ‘hoax’. His ‘FoxAndFriends’ cacophone touted the message that the viral spread fear as a “Good for nothing Democrats’ conspiracy”. Trump repeatedly suggested that ‘it would miraculously wash away. Don’t panic, carry on your lives and have the time of your as our economy surges’. It was shocking and stunning megaphone message to carry to Trump’s Base which is a huge number running to over 25 million at last count, as the viral surge made mincemeat of the market surge.
Now, now, there is a surefire
pivot from the White House. Trump has now eaten crow but claims that he has
been ahead of the curve and now closed borders and stopped flights from Europe,
the works. Still shutdown or clampdown has not been embraced except in
California by the State, on its own, on 20th March, 2020. Just see
the spread across Europe- Italy, France, Spain, United Kingdom, lot. We live
now in scary times.
The deaths in Italy have
outstripped those in China, the epicentre of this virus. But, give it to them,
the population has been so disciplined to follow the directions for a shutdown.
People stick by their homes. They have taken the quarantine measures as being
for their own good and not resisting or defying. The Spaniards have followed
suit. The populace is aware of the economic impact of a shutdown. Particularly,
on the middle class and those on the lower end. But life matters more than
economics. It is that kind of an hour we live in.
It was a pleasant surprise to see
the Congress party despite the visceral hatred their leadership has shown to
Modi & Co agreeing with the Prime Minister’s honest, sincere and moral
leadership to call on We The People to own up our responsibilities and duties, as
a nation, and make a success of the Janatha Curfew. Prime Minister is obviously
aware of the dissent, resistance and defiance that may have accompanied the
announcement of any curfew or shutdown by force. We are like that only. Never
follow the rules of the road when told to. Just look at the experience on the
road for simple things like compulsion to wear the seat belts or helmets. The
Modi administration had no choice but to play a different card, a moral appeal,
which may after all persuade us to see differently.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call for a self-imposed lockdown across India on Sunday, 22nd March, 2020, has found support from several quarters, including the Opposition. While the reactions have not been encouraging from the Left parties, which have typically poopoohed the idea as a tamasha, senior Congress leaders including former ministers P Chidambaram and Shashi Tharoor have strongly backed PM’s idea and vowed support to fight the coronavirus.
In his address to the nation on
19th March, evening, the Prime Minister appealed to the people to
impose a complete lockdown on themselves, in view of the virus and show
solidarity with the health workers and others who were putting their service to
the nation, ahead of their own safety. In his 29-minute speech at 8 PM, PM Modi
drew the attention of the country to the gravity of the situation globally and
warned that Indians need to be alert and take all necessary precautions, for
the challenging times ahead. It was an appeal to our patriotic instincts, as if
during wartime. The present generation may never have experienced the times of
Blackouts in 1965 or 1971. Kargil was too far and too distant to most. This is
a new experience and may just have the traction with the millenials, in whom
Modi places his huge trust, for a new India.
“I seek the support of my countrymen today. Janta curfew means a curfew for the public, a curfew imposed by the public on themselves. This Sunday, March 22, every citizen must follow Janta curfew from 7 am to 9 pm,” PM Modi said, adding that this act of restraint and resolve would ready the nation for the tough times that may lie ahead.
The Congress party which had been critical of the PM over the absence of any action or preparedness to deal with the outbreak, struck a reconciliatory tone following Modi’s address to the nation. “I welcome Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call to solidarity at this challenging time. Will support ‘Janta Curfew’ while conscious that Sunday is the easiest day to try it. Need more reinforcement of social distancing (incl. suspending Parliament) and specific economic relief measures,” tweeted Congress MP from Kerala Shashi Tharoor.
Former Finance Minister P Chidambaram also voiced his support to the measures announced by the PM but also expressed concern over the situation and stressed on the need to impose tougher measures in the coming weeks. “I have offered our support to the PM’s announcements yesterday, but I am absolutely certain that the PM will have no option but to come back with tougher social and economic measures,” Chidambaram said in a series of tweets, adding that “a temporary lockdown of towns and cities for 2-4 weeks is necessary.” “Yesterday, I got the impression that PM was testing the waters. He should act boldly. The war against coronavirus cannot be fought with moral armaments,” Chidambaram said in another tweet.
It may be easy to be dismissive of the Prime Minister’s statesman like appeal. It is not akin to Winston Churchill’s famed June 4th, 1940 speech, during the 2nd World War “We shall go on to the end, we shall fight…we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender…and would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old”. For sure, it is different, distinct and fits the bill for the unusual times.
It can be inspirational and motivating if each one of accepts our duties and responsibility to ourselves, at the selfish level to our families, community, society, cities, states and the nation at large. Just watch the viral videos from Spain and Italy where householders have clapped hands, rung bells, played music, and sang anthems, shared prayers, in praise of the Coronavirus Warriors on the roads, in offices, hospitals, nursing homes, labs and wherever. Fighting the battle from the frontlines for all of us.
All we need to
do this critical time and hour is to heed the request not advice of our Prime
Minister, to sit back, relax, throughout Sunday, 22nd March, 2020,
in our homes, and not stir out and come 5 P.M. get onto our balconies or window
sills or whatever we boast of and show our solidarity with all the fellow
Indians who are fighting the cursed virus from spreading wildly, as it
threatens to. Just saying a simple thank you to Covid-19 Warriors would be no
great shakes. But a national solidarity on the occasion would have an
electrifying impact on the national psyche which is wounded by the spread of
the viral impact and pump the adrenaline of the warriors on the frontlines who
take the brunt of the challenge. We need the resolve. We need the Unity. United,
We Shall overcome. Jai Hind.
(Narasimhan Vijayaraghavan- Author is practising advocate in the Madras High Court)
The former Chief Justice of Supreme Court of India, Shri Ranjan Gogoi has been appointed to the upper house by the current government must be seen apolitical and impartial stand. But the political parties that promote dynastic culture, nepotism, corruption and minority appeasement are extremely restless over the appointment of Ranjan Gogoi to upper house and all those tukde tukde gangs have gone to an extent of calling the said appointment as undermining the constitution of India.
The upper house is constituted by the members who are not elected directly by people. The elected representatives of the state elect the members to the upper house. If we look at the spirit of bio-data requirement of members of upper house, it is expected that the members of the upper house must exhibit wisdom, experience, merit, honesty and also they must conduct in Rajya Sabha apolitically. Every decision of the cabinet, the upper house must guide and modify if necessary and accordingly the upper house must ensure smooth functioning of the elected government.
But in the recent times, we have seen more disruptions and negativism in upper house. When people decides to elect a government with thumping majority due to its corruption free governance and sab ka vikas agenda, such government is expected to have its way in parliament. But the unelected members by people in upper house could not tolerate the wholehearted support of people to the government that they have elected. Such intolerance and annoyance of some of the members of the upper house has made them to behave like street politicians, engage in disruptions of the upper house session, delay legislations and play politics over national interest.
The only remedy for the above politics of ruin and destruction by the power of the unelected members by people of India, the upper house needs to be filled with honest, wise, experienced members who are apolitical. If such members come with vast experience and understanding naturally such members can contribute a lot to the country. Indian need experienced, honest, experts in various fields in upper house and not the representatives various political parties. If the upper house is dominated by political interest, despite people having elected a popular government, still things may go difficult because due to political interest and prejudice, most of the initiatives of such people’s government would suffer.
The appointment of Ranjan Gogoi to the upper house is remarkable and most memorable stand taken by Modi govt. Ranjan Gogoi enjoys impeccable integrity, come with vast experience and wisdom. Further Ranjan Gogoi is also apolitical and he has delivered his services as former Chief Justice of Supreme Court of India impartially and in letter and spirit of law and constitution of our country.
Modiji always give importance to merit, actions free from politics and the governance strictly towards sab ka vikas and corruption free. The appointment of Ranjan Gogoi has rattled most of the political parties that promote dynastic culture, nepotism, corruption and minority appeasement because they are largely worried by the above move due to the obvious fact that most of the Indian intellectuals and those who wish for new India are joining hands with PM Modi and quite contrary to that those who buttresses the congress party and other political forces that promote dynastic culture and corruption are mostly anti-Modi sloganeers and meritless sycophants.
PM Modi has already won the heart and mind of millions and millions of people in India and now most of the intellectual luminaries are also joining with Modi to make India a great land.
People of India must reaffirm their faith in Modi and must pledge their unconditional support to Modi to make India a great land. Not just by defeating those political forces that promote dynastic culture is enough, must decompose all those political forces and must be kept as fossil in political museum of India to show to the future generation how rotten were all those political forces to India.
Rajya Sabha approved Central Sanskrit Universities Bill 2019. The bill seeks to convert three currently working deemed Universities into Central Universities. The name of these deemed universities are: 1) Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan, 2) Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri Rashtriya Sanskrit Vidyapeeth and 3) Rashtriya Sanskrit Vidyapeeth.
It was approved by Lok Sabha in December last
year and presented in Rajya Sabha on 2nd March by HRD minister Ramesh Pokhriyal,
where it was passed by the house after some minor amendments.
The recent policy decision, once again, invokes
many concerns on the existence of other Indian languages and questioned the
need for the popularization of Sanskrit. However the answer of this question
itself lies in the constitution. The Article 343 of the constitution clearly
state that “The official language of the Union shall be Hindi in Devanagari
script” and need not to say the Devanagari Script is written in Sanskrit.
Further Article 351, add more relevance to the bill which says “expressions
used in Hindustani and in the other languages of India specified in the Eighth
Schedule, and by drawing, wherever necessary or desirable, for its vocabulary,
primarily on Sanskrit and secondarily on other languages”. Therefore Hindi, the
official language of our country, has to be based on Sanskrit.
Even in the question of existence of other classical languages and those who claimed Sanskrit as a dead language, we need to understand that firstly, there are four languages which directly used Devanagari Script are Hindi, Nepali, Marathi, and Sanskrit. Konkani and Gujarati is also based on variant of Devanagari Script. Secondly, the other language scripts also draw formulation from Sanskrit Script. The script is so rich, even one can write Bengali, Oriya and some South Indian languages using the mentioned Script. They all comes from Brahmi Script and there was a period when they all are interconnected.
It’s not only Modi Government, who are continuously talking
about the importance of Sanskrit, the mother of all Indian languages but the
western fascination to learn and explore Sanskrit can’t be ignored. It has been important language
thoroughly used by intellectual communities. Frequently used in therapy session
of psychology, spiritual remission, understanding migration theory and so on. In
Germany, fourteen Universities teaches Sanskrit. The list is impressive and
includes numerous premier academic institutes like Columbia
University, Cornell University, Harvard University, McGill University and the
McMaster University in Canada, Ohio State University, Rutgers University,
University of California at Berkeley, University of Alabama, University of
British Columbia and University of Calgary in Canada, and University of
Chicago. While recognizing the relevance
of the oldest language, Mr. Alex Michales, Professor of Classical Indology at the University of Heidelberg
said “Even the core thoughts of
Buddhism were in the Sanskrit language. To better understand the genesis of
oriental philosophy, history, languages, sciences and culture, it’s essential
to read the original Sanskrit texts as these are some of the earliest thoughts
and discoveries”.
Recently, while addressing to the concern, Mr. Pokhriyal also clearly state, we as a party committed to the growth of all regional languages, and the spread of Sanskrit becomes important as there were more than five crore students, who are studying the language in the country itself. However, Dr. Subramanian Swamy, the former Union Cabinet minister, articulation to Rajya Sabha members help lot to unbox the dilemma created by the opposition party. He spoke about the inter linkages of Sanskrit and Artificial Intelligence. According to the NASA research, Sanskrit, the ancient Hindu language, is the most suitable language to develop computer programming for their Artificial Intelligence program. The relationship between Sanskrit and Artificial Intelligent is not new and traced back in 1985 in the article of one of the NASA scientist, Rick Briggs. In his paper published in Artificial Intelligence Magazine, he talked about usage of Natural languages to convert the computing programme into robotic control and Artificial intelligence technology. The work primarily emphasis on Sanskrit among the other human languages, as one of the most important language for computing techniques.
The term “Sanskrit effect” adding new dimension
to this debate. This term was coined by neuroscientist James Hartzell. The research indicates that memorizing
Vedic mantras increases the size of brain regions and hence affects short and
long-term memory. The experiment was based on the MRI scanning of qualified
professional Sanskrit pundits, showing numerous regions in their brains were
significantly larger than those of controls. This finding also validates the belief resides
in Indian mythologies which suggest memorizing and reciting mantras affect the
structure of the brain and enhances thinking.
The applicability of Sanskrit Scriptures is not only limited
to above mentioned disciplines, its usefulness can be traced for the legal
system too. In the case of “Vijay Narayan Thatte & ors versus State of
Maharastra & ors”, the Judge AK Ganguly and Judge Markandey Katju cited
the importance of Mimansa System. They further added that it’s a
traditional system of interpreting a legal text and having a universal
application, where the same can be utilized for interpretation in future also.
Lastly, this step of government is much needed and highly
appreciable. Also, as we are in the verge of creating three central
universities for Sanskrit, government need to ensure that all the central
school must have Sanskrit as an optional paper. Further Sanskrit based
promotional activities are needed to conduct so that people can reconnect with
the mother of all the Indian languages, Sanskrit.
Author: Dr. Neha Nainwal, Faculty, University of Delhi
It is inevitable that by today evening will see the BJP back in power in Madhya Pradesh. It will be a major challenge for Shivraj Singh to not only get back to power but to stay on in power as his continuance is dependent on the results of the 24 bye-elections that will have to be filled within the next 6 months to full the Assembly vacancies caused by the 22 resignations and 2 earlier vacancies.
In my view, this is what the priorities of the new BJP Government should be:
Declare that its first and topmost priority is securing the State against the onset of Corona Virus, on which MP has been extremely fortunate and lucky so far. For this the following steps need to be taken:
Immediately stop all Bus Services from out of State into entering MP till March 31.
Initiate fumigation and disinfecting of all Public places like– Bus Stands, railway Stations, hospitals, Municipal Offices District and High Courts, Prisons, Tourist Spots
Request
all PSUs to shut down operations till March 31 and re-open in phase thereafter
based on the situation prevailing till then.
Ask all Schools to promote students to the next Class for Classes 1 to 8 without any Final, year-end Exams. This will not only prevent congregation of students for the examination but also relieve students and parents alike of mental anxiety and tension which is also very important in this time of crises.
Order all Cinema Halls and Air- Conditioned Malls Closed till March 31, 2020.
Order
all other shops to be open only on alternative days.
Issue immediate appeal to all people to follow the appeal of the PM to ensure that
the young (below 10) and the elderly (above 65) do not come out of their houses for the next 2 week’s
Sunday’s Janata Curfew should be made a resounding success – be careful to strongly APPEAL but not threaten at all; especially caution your over-enthusiastic Ministers and party Karyakartas to not make any threatening kind of statements on this matter.
Set up a Chief Minister’s Corona Virus Protection Fund and ask for generous donation from Industries and the common citizen. This should be a distinctly separate fund and not mixed up with the Consolidated Fund nor used for any other purpose– such separation and integrity of deployment is extremely important.
Ask all Pharma Industries in the State to either donate palliative medicines or Testing Kits.
Install
and Increase Testing facility in every District.
All
expenses incurred by Companies and donations given by industry/individuals
should be made a tax free expense.
Make a special overture and effort to woo the farming community who had felt neglected and cheated by your previous administration. NO matter that the truth is different but the perception was clearly of dissatisfaction.
Hence the CM, Finance Minister and Food & Agriculture Minister should undertake a whirlwind tour of the entire state to meet with farmer’s bodies, co-operatives to give them a personal hearing, understand what is causing them difficulty/ heartburn and try to expeditiously address these concerns.
This should be done on priority, and with a sense of urgency, particularly in matters of payment of Fasal Bema Yojana and Kisan Samman Yojana.
In case of the latter, use the BJP party members to ensure 100% registration of eligible farmers so that they receive their first instalment of Rs. 2,000/- at the earliest.
Announce and implement an urgent budget for upgrading of infrastructure on the following 3 area where maximum number of common citizens, particularly form the lower economic strata come;
Bus
Stands
Municipal
Hospitals and
District
Courts
The infrastructure improvement in these areas will be very visible, and favorably impact a huge segment of the regularly voting population, which only can ensure your continuance in power.
Immediately reverse all transfer and appointment decision of the Kamalnath Government in the last one month– do not feel shy or hesitant. Be ruthless and reverse them immediately.
Similarly seek the resignation of all persons appointed by the Kamalnath Government in various Public & Autonomous Bodies (just as they had done) or sack them immediately; you must show that you are not only decisive but can be rough and tough.
Thereafter, immediately appoint or reappoint your own persons.
Have a detailed and sincere dialogue with civil society of the comprising Professors/Teachers, Doctors, Lawyers, Journalists, Retired Govt. Servants and Judges, Industrialists and leading farmers and agriculture experts and ask them what they think are the priorities the Government should have for rapid development of the State.
This will give a huge and actionable “wish-list” of what the people of the Sate want and if you act on these you will get widespread Public Support.
Please video record all such dialogue and broadcast it in instalments so that there is complete transparency about what was asked and what was finally done.
To ensure victory in 24 bye-elections due in the next 6 months, do the following, from Day 1 :
Constitute 1000 man BJP Karyakarta teams for each constituency.
This team will have the responsibility that each member visits at least 400 homes in the next 5 months i.e. 80 homes per month i.e. 5 homes everyday for 16 days in each month.
This will enable 4 lakh homes to be visited in the constituency (80 homes per month X 5 Months X 1000 Karyakartas). Each constituency is estimated to have approx. 1 Lakh homes which means that, in the space of 5 months, each household can be visited 4 times by this team to seek votes for the election. It is this JAN SAMPARK that will win you the election, not merely the JAN SABHAS, of which BJP is rather fond of.
Remember, massive JAN SABHAS only gets you good media coverage; it is only the JAN SAMPARK at the person-to-person level that will get you the votes.
So do not make the mistake of the last election of believing that if Narendra Modi, Amit Shah and a few Central leaders come and hold Road Shows and big public meetings you will win the elections; time and again this had been proved to be wrong (see Rajasthan, MP, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, & Delhi)
The Central leadership can only give you strength and morale boost– the foundational solidity of your efforts can only come if your Karyakartas carry out a rigorous, planned and structured “Jan Sampark” to meet each and every potential voter, to knock on each and every door, to hear the complaints, woes and expectations of each and every family.
Such close touch with the voter will give you a lot of strength in not only getting their support but in also calling upon them to come out and vote.
Almost two years ago, Facebook co-founder made a staggering revelation as he discussed how Facebook takes advantage of a fault in our brains. He talked about the “social-validation feedback loop”, which is nothing but the desire of people to know what other people think of them. At the very heart of every social media platform in the world is this feedback loop – you post, people comment, you reply, someone likes your comment, someone disagrees, you reply, they reply. Do you see a feedback loop there?
I have come to a realization that the leftist media in our country takes advantages of another such human vulnerability in the day and age of social media. Let’s be honest and not fool ourselves – much of the younger people (less than 30 years) in bigger cities in India follow news from social media more than from mainstream media. A report from ASSOCHAM sheds more light into media consumption habits of young adults in big cities – “80% of Indians consumes news from social media rather than newspapers”. But why this sudden sea change in the habits? The answer to that lies at the centre of instant-gratification theory of marketing.
This cohort of younger people would show a preference towards anything and everything that is instant in nature – from the desire to cook two-minute instant to the desire to buy a new car that will require a high-interest loan instead of waiting until you have saved enough money to buy it without taking a loan. This is a reality. Psychologist Shahram Heshmat in his landmark study on instant-gratification argues that younger people are inadvertently attracted to impulsive choices. This is exactly what the leftist media irresponsibly takes advantage of in India and perhaps also the world.
Everyone would have seen how ThePrint carried an irresponsible piece claiming that Ram Navmi celebrations would go during the virus scare in India. The story was given a catchphrase like a title which encouraged people to draw instant conclusions. The title read – Despite coronavirus, lakhs to gather in Ayodhya because this ‘Ram Navami is different’. There were a lot of people who shared this story before being left ashamed a few days later when the same celebrations were rightly called off in India. At the same time, there were a lot of Hindu mass gatherings that were called off despite there being a lot of religious friction. Some of them included – Ganga Aarti in Varanasi, Vaishno Devi in J&K, Mumbadevi Temple in Mumbai, Shridi Saibababa Temple, Sidhivinayak Dagdusheth, Buddhist Monastery, all temples in Himachal.
However, not a single leftist media cared to cite this as an example. Interestingly, they also stayed away from an unconstitutional gathering of people blocking roads in Shaheen Bagh, Delhi. I very strongly feel that unconstitutional gathering of people of Shaheen Bagh is a serious national threat to India. Let us look at one example that puts the entire discussions of mass gathering to bed. Patient 31 in South Korea who was a “super – spreader” of Coronavirus and a member of the fringe church called Shincheonji. It came to contact with 1100 people and is said to have contributed to 80% of total Coronavirus cases in South Korea. It just needs one carrier to have a catastrophic effect on a country.
Everyone has a political opinion, but very few have educated opinions. The leftist media comes as a solution to the persistent tension in the minds of younger people to help them form political opinions. An average young adult is drawn into their philosophy which is the prima-facie idealistic of the two worlds. A lot of younger people show predispositions towards the left- naturally, it’s a more liberating and an ideal world. It takes time for the people to be drawn towards the sagacious world. You would see this phenomenon repeat itself like a template everywhere around the world. In the last UK election, when 60% of people ages 18-24 voted for the left-wing Labour Party, while 61% of people over 64 voted for the right-wing Conservatives.
The only explanation to this is that as people get more educated and get exposed more to the real world they make a shift to the other side of the coin. Now let’s look at an interesting study by the National Election Study (NES) that argues the more a Muslim is educated, the more he is likely to vote for BJP. The data suggest that the Muslim support for the BJP has certain discernible patterns – Shia, economically well-off, better educational qualification, women, young, religious, and slightly more opposed to inter-caste and inter-religious marriage. In the most recent Delhi Elections, a study argued that as the academic qualifications of a voter soared he was more likely to lean towards BJP. Is it because these people are less dependent on social media to help them form an opinion? It is true that as people age their reading habits improve and they’re also more exposed to the real world.
The leftist media scavenges of vulnerabilities just like Facebook does in the words of Sean Parker. But there are multiple stakeholders who give the ancillary support to these media houses. Perhaps the strongest of all them are the academicians in Indian universities. While I was studying in a premier management institution in India, I failed to comprehend how some of the professors could peddle socialist ideology which is the antithesis of everything in management. Well, I can imagine that if there is space for academicians like those in management institutions, the scene might be really scary in other institutions that are known for excellence in social sciences and humanities. I am personally not a big fan of Winston Churchill but he said something really provocative about socialism on 28th May 1948 in Scotland.
Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery. Winston Churchill
Following the latest walkout staged by the opposition as Ranjan Gogoi, ex-CJI of India took oath in Rajya Sabha, I wonder if all the national opposition can do for us anymore, is deliver mediocre drama performances.
Indian opposition’s dismal attempts at live-theatre can often be witnessed in the Well of the House, from where they unleash their vocal cords without warning on unsuspecting citizens glued to their television screens keen on catching the proceedings. Some outdated verses like Tanashaahi nahi chalegi or even the most controversial albeit plagiarised Jo Hitler ki chaal chalega, woh Hitler ki maut marega can often be heard in the temple of democracy, their courtesy.
However abysmal the dramatics, the opposition is exceptionally talented in passing judgements without as much as peeping at the concept of self-introspection. From the underrated online troll, Mr Rahul Gandhi, whose Twitter taunts blow out of proportions this country’s worst fears without single conceivable advice to offer for repair to the recurring self-goals from some of Congress’s Twitter handles one of which recently declared that Modi is letting COVID-19 situation get graver to deflect attention from the ailing economy.
It is another matter that as a responsible opposition, you’d think they’d have fought their elections on these issues they claim Modi is ignoring instead of the fictitious Rafale scam or the weak “Chowkidaar Chor Hai” campaign. Yet this is what we get, virtual-world trolls for competent opponents.
And it seems these dramatic politicians will never learn from their blunders, despite the renewed booing by the spectating public. Apparently, they’re fighting for what is “correct” because the massive mandate the prime minister received was given by hoodwinked and naive citizens to the “incorrect” fascist wizard.
This national opposition never misses out on opportunities. Since 2014, in each unrest that this country suffered, they spotted only pretexts they could exploit to play politics. They blamed this government’s ideology (the same which came back to power a second time), frequently crossing limits to dishonour the prime minister and home minister. As a last resort to remain relevant, perhaps because not all political strategies bring hate to India, they systematically drove full-scale attacks against the nation to win unpopular press internationally even if it meant validating fake news, with the help of their faithful and more frustrated than ever ecosystem. The most recent design being that of North-East Delhi riots, where international reports were given more importance by them as some of their own journalists had no option but to let them down and admit that it was not a pogrom. All hail social media!
At one point our dramatists even offered Shayari but no constructive criticism, especially where the government genuinely fell short, like its economic policies. They opposed but for the sake of it. They supported unconstitutional and undemocratic protests on the roads, fanned communal sentiments and provided cover fire to anti-national and Islamist elements. The latter remains an active threat to national security and are also, typically observed performing the victim under costumes of dissent and revolution. Recently, Congress party’s senior leader Mr Kapil Sibal was tricked by himself into admission in the parliament (that they never claimed CAA strips any Indian of citizenship) which caused their months’ old architecture called a moral high ground come crashing down rather anticlimactically.
This is the approach our opposition prefers to further its political ends; to make an issue where none exists, by wildly grasping at anything that remotely relates to the ruling party’s anti-Muslim and anti-democracy image.
But coming back to the parliament, it has witnessed possibly some of the funniest moments of comedy courtesy the opposition with leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhary’s hands defeating all stage props, karate-ing in all directions, proclaiming every resolution of this government apocalyptic for the ‘idea of India’.
Indeed, the opposition regularly exhibits prime concerns about saving our country from a fascist government in the parliament with their most revered head even asking a question or two before disappearing for his much-deserved break outside India. They use the whole day tabling incomplete data on the floor of the House, reprimanding centre’s actions yet surprise–stage a walkout within minutes of the home minister getting up to address their anxieties one after other.
Why these improvised trips to the backstage by our hyper-concerned national opposition? Perhaps there is something worse than even the idea of India getting destroyed which will make them stay back long enough to counter the home minister’s “lies”, on record?
But of course, they have dedicated online portals to handle such vacuum and to back their brave act. While we’re on that, the government can corrupt “Godi media” to raise pro-government voices, but god forbid if someone insinuates that the opposition may be backing editors of some selective news/fact-checking portals to become messengers of anti-government theories.
Oh, whither Indian opposition? A few members may have dared to deviate from this course laid out by their regina, but that’s not sufficient to bring about a change, chiefly because they don’t take explicit stands on national issues consistently. After Scindia joining the enemy camp, all eyes were locked on Pilot. One doesn’t predict him joining the BJP, but will he show the courage to exit a political party slash part-time NGO slash dramatics society which will never let him realise his potential lest he overtakes the heir? Besides, for all we know, Abhishek Manu Singhvi’s Population Control Bill or Jairam Ramesh’s Uniform Civil Code push is but an eyewash to keep the absurd argument alive that the opposition is in fact, still not as far driven to the left, as we believe.
Until then, on the one hand, the Indian opposition will employ their over ground workers for the dirty job of keeping their vile narrative war alive while themselves combating this government on anything but pertinent matters and sending the citizens of this country to slumber with their dramatic productions, playing all parts but the one entrusted to them. On the other, they’ll continue serving their matriarch while labouring to advance the prince’s vocation of a part-time politician, even if it costs this nation a competent opposition.
