Modi's Afghan Capers

Indians are heckling the US for suddenly withdrawing from Afghanistan. Though the withdrawal wasn’t sudden as everyone implies, nobody expected the turmoil it has led to with the Taliban quickly seizing power again. The US isn’t bothered much, it will get past this. It is India that looks stupid and left holding the baby and worried about what will happen in the region. On August 17, PM Modi typically held a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security to figure out what to do. As dumb as Modi and his EAM, Jaishankar, is, they are always unfailingly late to these situations. Modi was late on Covid, was late on the 2^nd round of Covid and is late on the Afghan issue too. You have to wonder what magical discussions happened in this CCS meet:

If you see the headline the concern is a lot about the Chinese funding Taliban and taking control of Afghanistan indirectly. Others are worried that terrorism in Kashmir will grow now that the Taliban is in control and in partnership with Pakistan. This is an unnecessary worry. Terrorism hasn’t stopped in Kashmir so the chances of it growing are minimal. In the churning that has happened in Afghanistan, India loses almost everything. Apart from the billions of dollars sunk in investments for nation-building in that country, India stands to lose influence on events there. The US, China, Pakistan will retain a good bit of influence but India will be left holding the baby. And even so, there are idiots who cannot stop crying for the Afghans and like this one and like “Raja Babu” Modi they want to take in all Afghans who can escape to India:

It is outright disgusting that Modi wants to take in Afghans without any limit or scrutiny while he brags about feeding 80cr “Bhooka-Nanga” in India for the last one and a half years. The elites like Kiran Shaw wouldn’t want one single tent of refugees near their bungalows. They would instantly complain to the police. The only ones that will struggle more are the ones in the slums who will be swamped with more useless population. ModiSarkar has set up an online “Emergency Visa” system for the Afghans wanting to escape the Taliban. All this just for him to look good with more lipstick and make up:

All of Modi’s decisions in such situations are knee-jerk and thoughtless while he ignores the real emergencies under his watch. The US did not start withdrawing on August 17 when the CCS meet was held by Modi. The US was also not the only country. Since the deal with Taliban was made in February 2020, many countries like Australia, Britain, Belgium, New Zealand etc. have slowly withdrawn from Afghanistan. The US was also withdrawing its troops and had reduced dramatically by August. The Taliban started taking over towns from July 9 onwards while Modi and Jaishankar were sleeping. They were sleeping till the Taliban had entered Kabul and running riot all over the place. And then Jaishankar grandly tweets how difficult it was to get the Indian staff to the airport and out of Kabul:

Before putting on such incompetence on display, Jaishankar was also giving worthless speeches at the UNSC. Schoolgirl speeches with the same old moth-eaten lines as “Terrorism has no religion… Terrorism has no nation”. Nobody in the world cares about such childish garbage from a billion plus country. And that’s the reason India has become a wimp among all the major nations. Our foreign policies are not driven by our “self-interests” and systematic pursuits but a megalomaniac “Raja Babu” who thinks it’s his “personal” equation that drives them.

Modi is on record stating that self-interest is not in India’s culture. He danced with Obama, even calling him by his first name “Barrack” as if they were “Langotiya” friends and Obama resoundingly slapped him with a comment on religious intolerance under Modi. Covid struck India on January 30, 2020 but Modi was again ignorant. He went off to dance with Trump on February 24 at Ahmedabad. He didn’t wake up to Covid till March 20 and his stilly “Taali Bajao, Ghanti Bajao” scheme. In 2019 he danced with Trump at Houston with “Ab ki baar Trump Sarkar”. Trump was gone faster than the wind. Modi’s dhoti, fish and Idli nonsense with Xi Jinping also ended up in the dustbin. Now they are not on hugging or kissing terms. Afghanistan? Gone! In the meanwhile, Modi did get the highest Afghan award of “Amir Amanullah Khan” for his services to Afghanistan.

It’s laughable how Modi turned India into a coolie for US and NATO to do all the donkey work in Afghanistan. And now, it’s all gone. Trump even mocked Modi for building a library in Kabul as if they desperately needed one. The brainless jerks that GOI and MEA are, they had welcomed the US deal with Taliban. What did these fools expect? That that Taliban will come singing with flowers to garland the books in the library and do Saraswati Puja?

All of Modi’s foreign policies were mostly driven by his so-called “personal” rapport with other leaders. When that rapport is gone, the relations also dim. India spent billions in Afghanistan hoping to gain some influence in that border state of Pakistan but all that is now gone. India should have never done anything other than serve humanitarian needs like food or medicine in Afghanistan. First the UPA and then a bigger jump by Modi demonstrated India’s lack of prudence and vision in the region. Afghanistan has always been a country of tribes and warlords almost eternally at war. And they will probably remain so. In the process, they have slaughtered Hindus and Sikhs from a sizeable population to nothing:

The report above seems to suggest the Taliban had rather left the Hindus alone. For Hindus, the GOI must never help any Afghan other than Hindus and Sikhs. A Sikh Canadian minister has openly welcomed Sikhs to Canada. India should not take in any Afghans other than Hindus and Sikhs. Where Afghan Muslims are concerned, it is for them to fight their own battles as the Taliban is the greatest example of what Islam really is. The Afghan Muslims also have the option to go to Pakistan or other Muslim countries. SAARC, BRICS, NAM all lie in shambles and that's a good indication of India's lack of prudence.

The Islam and Sharia that Taliban practices is also practiced by Saudi Arabia. Only that the rulers of Saudis are richer and better dressed and probably brush their teeth every day. Afghanistan is also proof of what was once a Hindu land, with Hindu people and what happens when Islam becomes the religion of the majority. The warnings are already there for India becoming a Talibanised country with murderous Sharia practices:

Muslims in India secretly adore and love the Taliban because they represent the TRUE FACE of Islam. Majority of Muslims also support Islamic courts and Sharia. Modi is not a very educated man or a man with vision or prudence. There is no need to take in any Afghans unless they are Hindus or non-Muslims who face persecution. The only help India must provide is humanitarian and not stock up more worthless refugees. We are not a rich country that can afford it. Modi’s Afghan capers will cost India and Hindus more than before.

 

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India Sports Hurdles & Future

A certain level of euphoria and joy over winning a few medals is natural in a country starved of sporting achievements. In particular, politicians, media and many on SM screamed the Men’s Hockey Bronze now makes India “world-beaters” and a revival of the game. Undoubtedly, it’s a very creditable performance. The Women’s team too performed creditably, finishing fourth.

In the light of some decent performances in Hockey there is a certain euphoria in India. One hopes that leads to a mass interest and lucrative careers. This also brought to light that after Sahara had to pull out of hockey sponsorship in 2018, it was Odisha and CM Naveen Patnaik who nurtured the game and that brought these results around. Unable to stomach Patnaik running away with all the credit, Lipstick-chaser PM Modi quickly announced changing the name of Rajiv Khel Ratna to Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna. Some of the tiniest countries in the world have won a gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics – Cuba, Fiji, Bermuda, New Zealand, Bahamas etc. It would be dishonest not to admit that India is a sporting failure. There are many reasons for it – excessive govt involvement, corruption, mismanagement of funding, total lack of innovation.

What is innovation in sports? This is a small story about Peter Ueberroth, the man who headed the Olympics committee for Los Angeles 1984. Until 1984, Olympics were funded by govts in full and was mostly a loss-making enterprise. For the first time in 1984, Ueberroth recruited sponsors across the US through various states and district organisations. The LA Olympics became fully self-funded and a financial success. At the end of it, LA made a surplus of $250 Mn (660 mn today) which was ploughed back into sports in the US. Competitive sport is a performance endeavour and not an “activity” endeavour. The GOI repeatedly does more of the same things incrementally with zero innovation and thus India stagnates in sports and laments every Olympic failure. And then we get PMs like Modi who seek to shine their own face with any success that our athletes get. Unless this changes, India will continue to languish at the bottom of international sports.

In terms of size only China comes close to India. The next biggest country is USA. While USA has topped the medals tally for almost a century, the Chinese have come to dominate the recent Olympics since 1992. India’s failure in sports is a long-standing problem and other than empty chest-thumping jingoism by Ministers, the PM and others there is nothing to show in terms of results. Here are some of the illnesses in the Indian system and why politicians are a nuisance to performance challenges:

China created a sports ministry in 1952 when it was as poor or poorer than India. Their harsh discipline and regimen have resulted in their topping the gold medals list often. India cannot run a harsh regimen like them but can certainly do with a lot of discipline in demanding performance and excellence. India had a sports department which became the sports ministry in 1982 with the Asiad event that year. It’s now 40 years but we have little to show as results in the Olympics although we have improved our performances in the Asian games and Commonwealth which have lesser competition. The last CWG held in India in 2010 had phenomenal financial corruption for which India is famous.

The country that most dominates the world sports, USA, does not have any sports ministry or minister. It is their internal sports systems, competition structure and private enterprise that nurtures the winners. US govts also do not directly fund any sporting activities or manage sporting facilities but in many cases offer financial aid or tax exemptions. Their state govts provide funding to the universities and schools which includes sporting activities too. Take a look at all the events that India participated in at Tokyo2020:

That is 18 events but some of them are hardly a regular sport in India but rather a hobby of personal pursuit. Equestrian, Fencing, Golf, Judo, Rowing, Sailing are not even watched or known for any major tournaments in India. Track & Field (T&F) athletics includes number of events – Running, Long Jump, High Jump, ShotPut, Javelin, Discus, Pole Vault and so on. India’s participation depends on some competitor coming up in some event in T&F events. In most competitions India simply wasn’t good enough to even qualify. It becomes worse when the delusional PM of a country that has consistently failed behaves as if the contingent is the greatest performer in the world. Modi is the epitome of brainlessness, empty worthless lipstick and delusional nonsense:

How many parents would be proud if their kids got 48% marks or simply failed? That’s what Modi thinks India is. At the time of writing this we have some 7 medals and nothing else to brag about. For a country of 1.38 Bn that is poor and nothing to be proud about. Indians are not that dumb that they need to be consoled with the fakery of Modi. Indians can absorb blunt truths and accept that our sports domain is in shambles and needs new thinking and not the nonsense of Modi-lipstick. To top it all, Modi is going to call the whole contingent to the Red Fort on August 15 to celebrate their “success”. The same Red Fort that he couldn’t protect from Khalistani vandals. Only a delusional PM can live in such “Mungerilal” activity. Modi simply doesn’t have anything to show so imagines rubbing shoulders with Bollywoodias or athletes will shine his face. Modi likes to lecture and sermonize everyone. He is now the Grandmother for the whole country and every segment of performance. He lectured the Olympics team too in a video conference before they left:

A general message of best wishes would do when the team is going for the Olympics but typically the biggest Lipstick peddler in India wants to spend most of his time in lecturing and sermonizing as if being the PM now makes him Norman Vincent Peale or the “Mor Bapu” that he is. He should be doing a daily “Katha” with old ladies at temples if he is that bored than sermonizing everyone else. His main intention is to bask in the borrowed shine of a few stars that the Olympic team has:

For all the nonsensical drama and lipstick of Modi, he set up a task force after the Rio2016 fiasco to set our sports systems right. It has been over 4 years now and no one knows who comprises that task force, what its work was and what the outcome was. In 2016 too, Modi danced with the athletes before they left to borrow a little media shine from them:

As an answer to all these sporting problems, the GOI came up with another moronic plan called “Khelo India”. You can look up the site and what the plan intends to do. You will find grandiose nonsense of Modi written all over it. It has everything from infrastructure to rural to women to financial assistance to everything. It also has a vague, ambiguous plan of turning India into a “Global sporting powerhouse”. Sports results can be measured and quantified. How the hell do you quantify “global sporting powerhouse”? It’s another Mungerilal dream. There is only one small thing missing – the measurable outcomes and the time frame.

The govt doesn’t know whether to adopt the China model where govt is involved in everything or the US model where the govt is not involved in sporting operations. Sometime back, Kiren Rijiju, the former Sports Minister, announced opening up 1000 Khelo centres in India. Wonder what they will do! Khelo India is nothing more than “Jugaad”. A placebo solution with no defined results for a major sporting failure. And for all the noise, the Khelo budget for 2021-22 (around 2500 crores) has been slashed (understandably because of the Covid situation) but the amount allocated is peanuts for an aspirational “global power house”:

It is not that we don’t know what the problem is. We all know and the govt knows too. Unless the govt gets out of sports management and stops playing Grandmother like Modi does, India will never progress. So, what are the few things that the govt can do? These are my suggestions and non-governmental experts can offer more ideas:

Many past Indian athletes are languishing in poverty. They have become hawkers or are into menial jobs. India is unable to find jobs for all the academic graduates that are “manufactured” from our education system. Therefore, sports must become a lucrative professional career. That should be the goal and not merely winning medals. If turning sports into careers becomes the goal then medal-winning automatically happens as internal competition widens and becomes tougher. Some of the richest sportsmen in the US are baseball and American football players. American football is not even an Olympic event.

There are 250mn Association soccer players in the world. Not all of them play in premier leagues. England alone has 20 teams in the Premier league football and 72 overall. Almost all countries have a professional football league and it offers the players global opportunities. The teams are run like limited companies just as IPL teams partly are. India must aim to make sports a professional career. Olympic medals are just a small part of the overall sporting culture of a country. Some of the rich and best performing countries at Tokyo2020 are not offering the highest bonus for medals. But their athletes do have reasonable earnings from regular competitions within their country. Take China's investment in sports. It hopes to make Sports a $773Bn industry employing 3 million people in a few years. For Tokyo Olympics alone China had spent over $1Bn:

It is the potential and promise of decent earnings and a lucrative career that drove many boys and girls across rural India to Cricket. Many of the men don’t get selected for Tests or ODIs but make good money in IPL. Govts must fund schools and universities to ensure athletes are financially looked after by corporate-adoption of teams. That is the only way forward. Govt involvement should be limited only to funding infrastructure and regulating flow of funds and sponsorships. There is no need for repeated motivational speeches from Modi or Kovind. PMs and Presidents come and go. Their speeches cannot win medals. A lucrative professional career in sports is the biggest motivator as seen in Cricket.

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