Patriots & Psychopaths

In an unusual survey by AOLJobs on which occupations attract psychopaths by Kevin Dutton, guess which is third on the list? Journalism! Read the article: “Journalism is Among Top 10 Occupations to Most Likely Attract Psychopaths”. The article goes on: “a number of psychopathic attributes [are] actually more common in business leaders than in so-called disturbed criminals - attributes such as superficial charm, egocentricity, persuasiveness, lack of empathy, independence, and focus” So, maybe it makes more sense now that we think how objective broadcast professionals and journalists must be to distance themselves from reporting. I’m not surprised at all. Most editorialists and TV anchors say things that they forget and they hope others forget too. I’ve said before that the Social Media is unforgiving and has a vast memory. Some of these celebs get themselves into a tangle quite frequently.

In my previous post, ‘Media loves criminals’, I made a gentle reference to Rajdeep Sardesai (RS) defending Dawood Ibrahim as a ‘patriot’. The reference came up in the post on how and why media promotes criminals and over the recent issue of Javed Miandad being a given a visa to visit India. Naturally, Rajdeep who discussed the issue on CNN-IBN with as much vigour as anybody else didn’t expect that his defence of Dawood as a ‘patriot’ would come up somewhere. Rajdeep, like all media amnesiacs thought no one would remember his Dawood connection. Fail! It started on Twitter with a quote from Swapan Dasgupta’s blog (see image). Not only does SwapanD record Rajdeep defending Dawood as a patriot he also mentions that Rajdeep was defending Dawood against “nasty saffronites”. Hmm! Saffron! The colour that Rajdeep and his Fiberal community hate. SwapanD also writes about the “editorial savagery” that greeted any links of ISI and Dawood with the Bombay blasts. Mind you, he isn’t recalling it as an observer; he is recalling it as an ‘insider’ who worked with TOI then. So when this ugly blast from the past came back to haunt Rajdeep he quickly tangled himself in a flurry of devious tweets and danced on burning coals.

Rajdeep went round and round in circles with tweets trying to escape but he couldn’t. First he accused “some” on Twitter (he cleverly didn’t name MediaCrooks) for lying and defaming. So, I presented him with more facts about his TOI article (April 2, 1993) and his statement of Dawood being a patriot being raised in the Parliament. Ouch! Parliament lying and defaming too? Expectedly, no response! He finally gives up the ghost and tweets Dawood is a patriot by the “Thackeray” test. The reference is to the late Bal Thackeray who isn’t around to comment on this cheap theatrics by RS. Note, RS hasn’t anywhere denied that he defended Dawood as a patriot. Dawood is India’s most wanted terrorist, is an accused in the Bombay blasts of 1993, is accused of links with Pak ISI, suspected of links with Al-Qaeda and also of master-minding many terror attacks on Indian soil from Pakistan. But when most in Bombay clearly suspected Dawood of the 1993 blasts RS was busy defending him as a ‘patriot’. Instead of acknowledging his bungling because of his hate for “saffron” Rajdeep continues to dodge. Now, if this guy is airing his crap on TV every night, you can imagine how much potential prejudice he may carry while discussing issues related to national security, Hindu culture, Saffron parties or Islamic terror. That’s the “secular” way of climbing ladders.

Rajdeep likes seeking apologies from others. If he is “masculine” enough he should acknowledge he made a terrible mistake and say: “I am sorry, I made a mistake” (Oh! Don’t repeat “error of judgement” please). Only a psychopath in India would call Dawood a patriot or refuse to acknowledge his past mistake, if it indeed were one. But the survey did say psychopaths are attracted to journalism. Right! So let’s talk about more psychopaths.

Somewhere in the 9-volumes of his life-work, to his Western audience Swami Vivekananda responds to a question on women. Not an exact quote but I recall from memory that he explains that when westerners think of a “woman”, they usually think of the girlfriend or wife. But for Hindus the first idea of a woman is ‘mother’. We refer to our homeland as “Bharat Ma” or “Bharat Mata” and sometimes picturise her as in the image. Quite a few on the social media have this pic as their ID.  Swami Vivekananda is a Hindu icon and is respected as a patriot. However, a psychopath in a newspaper that ironically still calls itself “The Hindu” had some hatred pouring from it. The latest episode had to do with Swami Vivekananda. We’ll get to it.

The anti-nationals and the pseudo-seculars have strived for decades to tar almost every Hindu symbol as an act of shame. Morons have responded to such idiots by appeasing them in the hope they will get greater support for their cause, whatever the cause may be. After the Delhi Gangrape incident some of these appeasers have regularly been on TV talking about safety of women, concerns for law and order and so on. Someone currently holidaying in London wants to finish off Hindus in 15 minutes. Page-3 activists like Nafisa Ali even equated an elected CM with Ajmal Kasab. That was on NDTV, the channel that loves patriots like Musharraf and Imran Khan. I wonder how long it will be before someone comes up with the “Idea of India” where Ajmal Kasab too is was a closet Hindu. Remember Anna Hazare’s Lokpal fasts in August 2011? One of the first things they tore down to appease “seculars” was a poster of Bharat Mata. Kiran Bedi & team were at the feet of that Syed Bukhari begging him for support. An Ex-Police Officer I respect, Kiran Bedi seems to have forgotten Bukhari had an arrest warrant pending on him since 2001. It seems Delhi police didn’t have the courage to arrest him. Kiran Bedi is never short on words for enforcement of law. They showed much respect for “Bharat Ma”, didn’t they?

The same hypocrisy exists in the commie outfit called “The Hindu” whose editor, S. Varadarajan, is an American and hasn’t exactly shown his paper’s name means anything remotely connected with Hindus. So Varadabhai, as I fondly call him, hires a journalistic-psychopath called Sanjay Srivastava to heap more trash on Hindu practices. If it were mere criticism, that could pass. But this psychopath writes in connection with the Delhi Gangrape: “Taking the aggression out of masculinity” which starts with the sub-line: “The Indian family has been a long-standing site for reinforcing and perpetuating male privilege and entitlement”. Indian family? Okay! But that ends there and suddenly turns to Hindus alone and, like many fools before, he trashes Hindu practices. So let’s accept that by the logic of ‘The Hindu’ that Indian simply and definitely means “Hindus”. Who’s gonna complain about that? The rest of it is nothing but another foolish rant but surprisingly brings up Swami Vivekananda’s “pose” as the symbol of this “masculinity”. He says: “Swami Vivekananda’s masculine photographic-pose was only one aspect of the cult of masculinity encouraged and tolerated by nationalism”. Huh? On their website this pic of Swami Vivekananda keeps flashing on and off.

So Indian family -->Hindus -->Swami Vivekananda’s pose--> Masculinity-->Therefore rapes. QED! Damn! This was so simple and we didn’t get it all these centuries. But hang on! This Srivastava has got a serious point. I’m not kidding. In a previous post I mentioned that in 2010 rapes in the USA were highest at 84767 so I decided to check out Srivastava’s theory.

I am truly stunned. You can see Abraham Lincoln striking the same pose as the Swami. So it’s fair to imply Lincoln’s masculinity inspires rapes in the US. I was wrong though, as someone pointed out that on the same page I have linked, South Africa has the highest rapes at 277,012. Oh hell! I had to check all over again. But there you are! Nelson Mandela has the same pose as the Swami. But hold your breath! While searching for these I also found Karan Thapar in the same pose for his programme on CNN-IBN. So by Srivastava’s logic Karan Thapar’s “masculinity” is a serious threat at CNN-IBN or where ever he works.

Out of sheer curiosity I also checked out the pics of Varadabhai and Srivastava. The similarity is striking, eh? So, next time you cross your arms across your chest be careful. You could be termed “masculine” and a “motive” or “inspiration” for rapists. Now, some have tried to demolish the foolishness of Sanjay Srivastava and ‘The Hindu’ with truth and logic. But hey, if logic and truth mattered at all would these people write such foolish articles in the first place? If logic and truth mattered would Rajdeep have defended Dawood as a “patriot”? Truth, facts and logic don’t inspire them. What unites these commie “sickulars” is their uniform and consistent hatred of Hindu culture and practices. Nothing complicated. Rajdeep’s deputy even hates seeing Saffron in our National Flag; she calls it “Orange”. You know, I’m starting to believe that survey that suggests journalism does attract psychopaths; with their hatred and twisted sense of patriotism.

Horse Sense & The Macaulay Putris

There is nothing in the life of George HW Bush that would account for his rise to the office of US President. A successful WWII pilot, a successful oil-businessman he had almost no political victories to speak of. He didn’t win the nomination for the presidential election of 1980 either. But GB had something; he had ‘horse sense’. He tagged on to Ronald Reagan for a long time and was picked for the latter’s VP candidate. It is as Reagan’s follower and VP for 8 years that GB finally got elected as president. “Many people assume that success in life involves "trying harder". Nothing is further from the truth”. That’s the publisher’s line for the book ‘Horse Sense’ by marketing gurus Al Ries & Jack Trout.

From Hollymonroe.Com

The most successful people are those who "find a horse to ride": the one idea, the one company, the one thing, or even the one person that can propel them to the top. Most of our media celebs ride these horses; either political or business. Lately, some of these female celebs have been quite aggressively helping us understand how Arvind Kejriwal’s agitation is a class-war. A war between the elites and the middle-class, between the Macaulayputras and middle class! Just one problem; these MacaulayPutris keep imagining these elites are other people and not them. It doesn’t seem to occur to them that they are indeed the MacaulayPutris and elites and nothing about them qualifies them as “middle class”. Buckle up…

“At the traffic lights - where our cars came into enforced confrontation with poverty - and we saw a small hand stretched out for alms, or a disabled man trying to wave a red rose or a magazine at us, imploring us for help - we would barely look up from behind our over-sized designer sunglasses. We would, in fact, sink back into the plush leather of our seats and be extra determined that the story of India would no longer be told in picture-postcards of poverty”. Barkha Dutt: “Writes of passage” Hindustan Trolls  April 13.

So you see, most Indian middle-class people wear designer sun-glasses, drive cars with plush leather seats. They ignore the beggars and the disabled selling magazines or roses at traffic junctions. Mind you, the only place a “middle class” lady like Barkha can now eat “Gol-Gappas” is at the PM’s party. Not on the streets like “upper-class” Indians. Let’s hear another similar heart-breaking story.

"The moralistic virtuosity of Team Anna rankles many of us. We who have made our compromises, we who speed our cars when we see beggars approaching, we who roll up our car windows when vendors sell us agarbattis at traffic crossing, we don’t see children who are rag pickers, night soil lifters and tea vendors. We are morally, spiritually, physically depleted, exhausted and blind. This revolution that Kejriwal talks about isn’t for the likes of you and me. We have made our compromises". Smita Prakash: “Who has the stomach for a revolution?” MidDay August 6.

Damn! What’s with these two ladies and cars and traffic signals? Compromises? Read that as: “we have chosen our horses”. Don’t despair! I managed to find someone who doesn’t talk about cars and traffic signals. Instead, she talks about “Tits, Clits and Elephant dicks” and “The Vagina Monologues”. Who could it be but our very own Social Genius:

“No wonder this neo Macaulayputra now faces a quintessentially desi revolution, a revolt is brewing, something is stirring in the air. Kejriwal versus Vadra is as much a class war as it is a war against corruption, it is a war between an elite class—containing within it undoubtedly many many examples of excellence and achievement—and an aspirant class of dhartiputra for whom the moral crusade is sharpened by class anger…. Hindutva rage against so called “English speaking secularists” has been manufactured as not just rage against those who are supposed to love minorities but against those who are perceived to be members of a left liberal aristocracy who practice vote bank appeasement in order to maintain their own political and social monopoly of public life". Sagarika Ghose: “Vadra vs Kejriwal: This is also a war about class” FirstPost October 10.

There you are, it’s not just class wars but also Hindutva rage against ‘English speaking secularists’. That’s from a woman who wanted ‘female orgasm’ to be a Constitutional right. We get the humour, of course. For her and the elites, the Hindutva folks are the biggest enemies who are constantly in the “manufacture-rage” mode. All three, Barkha, Smita and Sagarika seem to forget they are indeed the ‘Elites’. They are indeed the MacaulayPutris who seem to trigger the middle-class outrage being channelled by AK. Why do their writings smack of so much hidden guilt? Barkha has umbilical ties to Hindustan Times. Smita is the daughter of a Principal Information Officer of GOI. Sagarika is the daughter of a Doordarshan director and her relatives include judges and ambassadors. All very “middle class” eh?

All 3 women seem to be obsessed with Kejriwal and class-wars. Coincidence? Would these women have gotten to where they are any differently from Vadra or Kejriwal? Not in terms of multi-crore deals or anti-corruption fights but in terms of position and influence. And all three are stupidly, terribly wrong about AK too. They’re either simply too dumb or unwilling to see how AK got where he is and they confuse his war as one of class.

By reports AK first approached former president APJ Abdul Kalam for his IAC movement. A Prominent TV panellist told me Kalam said “I’m all for this anti-corruption thing but I love eating so don’t ask me to fast and blast and all that”. AK then approached Narayana Murthy of Infosys. NM’s response was: “Look Mr.K, we must evolve our social structure supported by a massive overhaul of our systems which bring in investment and expands our capabilities to compete in the world and take progress to the grassroots without upsetting the balance in our industrial position in the world which can badly impact the morale of both the govt and the people as also our fight against corruption and our methods must be secular without offending the rightwing, leftwing, centrists, media, politicians or neo-nazis”. Got it? I’m sure AK must have returned from NM with his head spinning. So he went to Anna Hazare. AH was known for anti-corruption agitations and fasting. AH was willing. AH was willing to fast and be the face of AK’s movement. Ride the right horse! Can you now imagine AK carrying out his IAC on his own? He was more or less a “nobody”, not even 20 people would have turned up for him. Picking Kalam, Murthy or Anna is what’s called Horse Sense. Vadra, the national son-in-law, is the horse that DLF rides as do many other business entities.

Consciously or unconsciously Sagarika luckily picked a horse too. The moment Rajdeep Sardesai got to head a channel of his own she was Deputy Editor at the channel. You think anyone else would have expected that? Out of the blue some guy called Ashutosh Varshney was a panellist frequently on NDTV. Except for stray comments here and there I hadn’t heard of this guy before. Well, what do you know! Before you could say ‘horse’ he had turned Barkha into a ‘Sabbateur’. Er.. That’s my description of someone on a sabbatical as Barkha now claims to be at Brown University under some fellowship. Varshney is Director, Brown-India Initiative. Wait a minute! It could be the reverse too. It could have been Varshney horsing around. The two can decide which one it was. Of Smita, I don’t see a new horse to identify and I hope it stays that way.

Most people in public life in India strongly rely on horse sense. It’s not a bad thing and not a bad route to the top. Think Ahmed Patel, think Rajiv Shukla and make your own list. Some, unfortunately, take it to the level of slavery. The entire clan and cult of Macaulay Putris and putras are essentially outcomes of such horse sense. Calling themselves ‘middle class’ is another of way of somehow defending their elitist guilt. 

Note: Responses of APJ Abdul Kalam & Narayana Murthy to AK are imaginary and shouldn't be confused for real. 

 

Funeral For A Sparrow

History hangs on tiny chances. The five gentlemen in the pic below have nothing in common now. From left: First is a tax-guru, next is a film-maker, 3rd is a politician, the fourth is a playwright and the last one is a lawyer. Yet, if you look up history, it will tell you that these guys do have something in common. They, with a few more, led the first and only successful mass agitation ever in the history of independent India. What will shock you even more is that the agitation started with what was a small, localised issue of hike in canteen charges in a college. The issue of corruption got added to the canteen issue.

History hangs on tiny chances. Mohamed Bouazizi, a street vendor, immolated himself over losing his stocks after paying a fine and that triggered in Tunisia what we now know as the Arab Spring. He died.

Cut to the present. What is it that TeamAnna wanted to change? Obviously, corruption in the govt system! Change the system to what? Bring in a Janlokpal. There is no specific incident or event that triggered Anna’s Lokpal movement. It’s not as if someone killed himself or self-immolated directly for corruption. This was a well-planned, well-organised agitation and not a spontaneous movement that brought people together. How to bring about that change? Hunger strikes, gatherings in Delhi, SMS for support, put up websites and so on. Then they made a fatal mistake. Following some minor success in terms of people’s response, they broadened their agenda. They added to their demands Lokayuktas across all states, Citizen’s Charter, CBI under independent control, Charge-sheets against certain ministers and a bit more. The menu had grown bigger.

The movement died the day Anna gave up his fast after 12 days in August 2011. That may be a bitter pill to swallow for some but that’s the fact. I may sound harsh but why did Anna give up his fast when he had the govt and MPs by the scruff of their necks? Especially since he kept repeating that he is a soldier who will “die” for his cause. No, I don’t regret it. I am happy Anna is alive and we hope he leads a long, healthy life. But there is no Lokpal. There is nothing to show as results for that agitation. In the end, when the Lokpal Bill does get through the credit will be claimed by some political party (just like with RTI) although that may not be that important.

Having failed to get the Lokpal Bill, the movement has now become some kind of a political monster. It has become the very thing that Anna’s agitation targeted. Irony! Not in terms of corruption but in terms of strategies and language. The “how to” change has become more of hurling charges at some politician or prominent figure every week. Mind you, the charges are not being discussed here. Arvind Kejriwal now leads a political movement. His tactics, though, haven’t changed. The only visible change is that AK has borrowed Anna’s ‘Topi’ which he never wore earlier. It’s once again an irony as some point out. AK wants new-style politics with old-style symbolism. The Gandhi-topi for long has become a symbol of the pot-bellied, corrupt politician and not the principles that Gandhi used to represent. The other grave and serious mistake that AK and his team are making is: fighting a battle in the media. By now AK should have been wise enough to learn that the media is not his friend. It is nobody’s friend. It’s a friend to those in power and those with money. If you have neither, they will make sure you are run down and destroyed. I have documented the media follies of TeamAnna long back in the post ‘Goodwill Blunting’

After the noise and drama over Robert Vadra and Salman Khurshid even the disappointed media called TeamKejriwal’s so-called ‘expose’ on Nitin Gadkari a “damp squib”. Naturally so! The media would have loved to see some serious charges against Gadkari. It would have suited them great and so too their Congress bosses. Haha! Not surprisingly, even chronic distorter Digivijaya Singh was unhappy with AK. He stated on TV that he would have liked AK to go after Narendra Modi. Why not! In the context of the forthcoming Gujarat elections nothing would have pleased the Congress and media more. Agitations and political battles are not fought on television. This is something that the IAC team doesn’t seem to have learnt and something Narendra Modi seems to have mastered. Even if you do not wish to pursue corruption charges in court it’s a lot better to take these to the people than to the media. As simple as that! Narendra Modi’s 1880 Crores charge against Sonia Gandhi is going to stick for a long time. The media will bury allegations against Robert Vadra, Salman Khurshid and Nitin Gadkari and move on. They need their daily “item number” and AK seems to be providing it for free. But if AK and his motley crew had gone to the people at various places they would have succeeded in creating “perceptions” that would be hard to dismantle by the media.

One of the stupidest arguments by fanatical AK supporters when he is lampooned or criticised is “what are you doing about corruption?”. This is as silly as they can get. Far from getting more support it alienates more. First, not everyone has chosen to fight this battle for their own reasons, not even the media. Secondly, how stupid would it be to ask a movie critic to go act in or direct a movie if he lampoons a movie? If Harsha Bhogle were to criticise batting or bowling, how moronic would it be to ask him to go out and play instead of commentating? The media has already targeted TeamAK by bringing out some builder-NGO nexus of corruption against Mayank Gandhi, one of members of TeamAK. Who can forget the frivolous travel bills issue about Kiran Bedi? That made more noise in the media than allegations against Gadkari. The question both AK and his supporters need to really ask is: Why has the biggest face of IAC, Anna Hazare, himself withdrawn? That has never been honestly explained. Merely borrowing the symbolic “topi” for the media doesn’t mean anything. As it gets tougher for their paymasters, the media is sure to raise more muck against TeamAK, real and imaginary. Symbolism has to connect with people.

The five gentlemen I mentioned earlier are Mukesh Patel, Manishi Jani, Umakant Mankad, Parthiv Vyas and Nirupam Nanavati. All were leaders of the Navnirman agitation in Gujarat in 1974. The agitation also found support from political parties, including some members of the then Congress govt in the state. Even Narendra Modi is reported to have been involved from the outside through RSS and ABVP. Except for Umakant Mankad, who is a Congress member, none of the others are in politics. They succeeded in their agitation; perhaps far beyond their expectations. It was the agitation that triggered Jayprakash Narayan’s movement which led to the Emergency in 1975 and eventual downfall of Indira Gandhi. The first pic on the left is of the agitators on Nehru Bridge in Ahmedabad. The second pic is that of stone-pelting. Haha! Ironically, it’s not by the agitators but by the police in retaliation to being attacked from rooftops. There was no TV then and most newspaper reports couldn’t be accurate because of months-long curfews. The Navnirman agitation brought down the Chief Minister and the state govt. All this by traditionally “effete” people as Barkha Dutt and Vir Singhvi call Gujaratis. Navnirman wasn’t fought on TV or in the media. It was fought on the streets by a huge number of people.

Symbolism matters. No, not on some stupid media channel but on the ground with people. During the Navnirman agitation a Sparrow was unfortunately killed in police firing or by stone pelting. The agitators symbolically took out a huge funeral procession for the unfortunate sparrow. Not even the police dared to stop the procession and allowed the funeral rites for the martyred sparrow to be completed. Over 100 people died in police firing in the Navnirman agitation. Each time Team AK hold a press conference for their ‘exposes’ it keeps getting bigger and bigger. The media gets a reality show without having to pay for the production costs or hire actors. Sooner or later this same media will destroy them. These shows aren’t as powerful as the funeral for a sparrow.

Note: The Late Chimanbhai Patel, Chief Minister, who was brought down by the Navnirman movement returned as CM some years later. He is credited with initiating the Sardar Sarovar Project (Narmada Dam) which is a lifeline for Gujarat. He remains a much respected figure in Gujarat politics.