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. 

 

Anjali Damania - Jenny Come Lately

When Kishore Samrite, an ex-MLA of Samajwadi Party, filed a case in the Allahabad HC against Rahul Gandhi for alleged abduction of a woman named Sukanya there wasn’t a whisper on any of our TV channels. The HC dismissed the case after Sukanya was reportedly produced in court and slapped a fine of Rs.50 lakhs on Samrite. The case is now in the SC. Surprisingly CBI, which investigated the case, has stated to SC such a woman doesn’t exist.  Strange, isn’t it? The Allahabad HC dismissed the case after the woman was reportedly produced in court and now CBI claims in SC the woman doesn’t exist. Never mind. Did you hear any of this on any TV news channel? Did you hear any of it when Samrite actually filed the case in the Allahabad HC? Nothing! When the HC dismissed the case and slapped a penalty, Headlines Today only reported the dismissal and the penalty but not any details about the case. Read the post “Rahul Gandhi-Sukanya case: Amazing media silence”. Now imagine if some member from BJP or TMC or AIADMK or BJD were involved in the case instead of RG. You can then imagine the case would be on TV 24X7 for all these past 6 years without let up.

Is it any surprise that even Mamata Banerjee, in her interview to Rajdeep Sardesai, hints at “PaidNews”? Paid by Congress particularly! Okay! Then there were reports about Sonia Gandhi being one of the richest women politicians on earth by Business Insider. I’m sure you’ve seen Arnab debating the report on TimesNow. No? Or Rajdeep Sardesai’s interview with her about that? No? Yes, I think you finally remembered that discussion on the billions stop here with Barkha. No? Damn! Everyone missed these reports? Well, that’s our celebs in the media for you; shamelessly devoted to maligning anyone and everyone opposed to Congress. It wasn’t even a day since the news of the resignation of Ajit Pawar, Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra, over the massive irrigation scam that our media found a whipping-boy. One would have thought there would be news about the scam, how it was operated, how the contracts were given out and who benefitted from it. Nothing!

Politicians, regardless of parties, are known to dole out favours to each other. But for the media to make extra-ordinary charges on the basis of someone’s allegations is stretching a bit too far. They must have heard Arindam Chaudhari’s clarion call: “Dare to think beyond irrigation, water, canals and dams”. And Lo and behold, they found Damania, Anjali Damania (AD). The Jenny-come-lately! And the target? Nitin Gadkari (NG), the BJP president. Anjali Damania seems to be a band member of Arvind Kejriwal who is fighting… I don’t know who or what he is fighting anymore. From a position of credibility and trust the man now enjoys as much credibility as Nixon selling used cars.

So what was this Anjali’s problem? Seems she met NG three times over this irrigation scam and according to her he had asked her to back off the allegations because Sharad Pawar was a close friend. So she’s very upset that the one man, with a RSS background, she trusted to arrest all scamsters in the irrigation scam let her down. And she has proof of her discussions with him in the form of an SMS she sent him. Damn! This is a warning for all you people out there. Make sure nobody sends you SMSes; you could be incriminated in any crime of their choice. So from September 27 it was AD all the way for our media crooks and the irrigation scam itself was over and done with. While NDTV and CNN-IBN made allegations along with AD on their channels, Times Now went further and held a full panel discussion. Some interesting titbits from TimesNow:

Anjali showed her mobile to the world as demanded by Arnab. Then she read out her SMS to NG as proof of her conversation with him. I can’t believe it was actually an SMS. She invoked patriotism, invoked RSS bhakti, invoked blah blah… She read it for nearly a minute or more. Who the hell sends SMSes that long? It read more like a legal notice than a SMS. Well, I would estimate it could be something like that. Send a message to make it part of a record that may be handy in future. She doesn’t have even 1 message in acknowledgement or of any nature from NG though.

During the discussions AD states she received threatening phone calls. On a single day she got 30 such calls she mentions. All of that must be to stop her from blowing her “whistle” I imagine. So a panellist asks her why she didn’t record any of those threats and she responds with “am I expected to record all threatening phone calls”? Oh! Now, she’s on a whistle-blowing trip and receives not one, not two, not three but 30 phone threats in a single day and she still didn’t consider it necessary to record even one of those? Umm.. routine for RTI activists I suppose. Fine! Strikingly, she doesn’t even complain to or even inform the police. Does that sound normal to you? Does that look like the behaviour of a reasonable person?  

So the rants began from NDTV, Times Now, CNN-IBN, Headlines Today and I’m sure all the other language channels too. “Gadkari silent”! “Gadkari fails to respond”! “Gadkari hiding”! As if all that clearly established his guilt. On September 27 NG sent AD a legal notice charging her with defamation and all her claims to be falsehoods and untruths. The best headline after this was, of course, from Times Now (Sep 28), the guys who have already been slapped a 100-crore defamation damage: “Irrigation scam puts BJP on the back-foot”. Haha! So from Congress and NCP being the perpetrators of the scam it is the opposition party that is guilty and is on the back-foot. But Arnab did pull out a few documents that showed AD had more than just public interest in mind while tracking the irrigation scam. Seems, she held lands that would have been damaged by some dams.

As for the legal notice by Nitin Gadkari you have to only see the two reports and how contrasting they are: TOI and NDTV. For some reason NDTV doesn’t reveal the full story while TOI has a little more than the legal notice. Let’s read some excerpts from the TOI story: (Includes comments by Eknath Khadse, leader of Opposition in the Maharashtra Assembly)

Gadkari's notice to Damania on Thursday evening asked her to retract her "false, baseless and defamatory statements". "You are making such false and baseless statements only to make sensation with the object to defame my clients. The state BJP unit was the first to unearth the irrigation scam and has undertaken public agitations...,'' said the notice. Senior BJP leader Devendra Phadnavis said…. "In the last budget session, I raised several queries based on the papers procured by the BJP and Damania through RTI. I had even mentioned that IAC members were being targeted for raking up the scam. In fact, she (Damania) wasn't even aware of the whistle-blower (chief engineer Vijay Pandhare). I told her about the letter and gave her Pandhare's number"… Further attacking Damania, Khadse said: "Damania had taken land near one of the irrigation dams. The govt decided to raise the height of the dam, following which Damania's land was getting affected. She wanted the govt to lower the height, but all her efforts yielded no results. On the contrary, the govt forfeited her land as Damania had purchased it without being eligible for it."

So, as usual, where it concerns the opposition, the onus to prove guilt is not on the “accuser” but on the “accused” to prove innocence. That’s our MSM. Throughout September 28 no channel asked any questions about AD’s lands or their status. None! Who knows she might have even met NG (assuming she has indeed met him) to save her lands and turned bitter if/when he had refused! Why isn’t that possible? I can’t help rephrasing the statement of the Amicus in that SIT report about another whistle blower, Sanjiv Bhatt’s claims: “There is no evidence that Anjali Damania did not meet Nitin Gadkari and seek to save her lands”. Now let the media twist that one. Well, move over Top Cop, Anjali Damania is here and she’s the new darling of our media. The Jenny-come-lately! 

Team Anna - The Genie's Back In The Bottle

On the evening of August 2 Team Anna (TA) decided to end their fast and confirmed their option of going political. So on prime time TV all the channels were discussing, debating, kicking and screaming over the decision, the nature and the contours of such a new political party. I have a very simple answer and willing to bet on this: There is going to be no TA political party of any kind. Period! Anna Hazare, the anti-corruption activist, never was and never will be a politician. Not because of some arithmetical outcome but because of his own choice. Throughout his life as an activist Anna has been confronting corruption, corrupt politicians or some social evil and that is the mission he has chosen for himself. This has been mostly as a lone ranger. I doubt he ever wanted a large national stage but yet he found himself in one. Perhaps this wasn’t of his own choice or making. The mystery remains over how he got into this JanLokpal (JLP) mess with a Rag, Tag and Bobtail outfit. Having gotten into it, pulling out was never easy even if one assumes it had crossed his mind sometimes. So whose movement was this really? Who were the real actors? And why were they doing this?

Like everyone else I was supportive of the fight against corruption and applauded TA’s efforts. In April 2011 after the govt blinked I wrote the post “Lokpal Bill: Why The Congress Blinked..”. The April 2011 round of fasts and agitation were followed by another huge one in August 2011 which appeared to be even more successful. But since August 2011 it has been downhill for TA. I had reasoned why in another post “TeamAnna-Goodwill Blunting”. Turns out the bloopers of TA go far beyond their media obsession. This is my final post on the saga of TA.

In a season of scams by the Congress-UPA govt any anti-corruption movement would naturally receive huge public support. Even Subramanian Swamy, who was almost in a political exile, came back to the mainstream with a flurry of court cases and was back in the limelight with a massive following. He is now part of the NDA. But we did have a very unlikely character launching an anti-corruption movement. In March 2010 Baba Ramdev, the yoga guru, launched Bharat Swabhiman. He called it a non-political movement against corruption and black-money. Er.. Totally unacceptable! Guy clad in saffron, strong Hindutva connections and a mass following threatens to take on the govt over corruption. He went on a yatra to many towns with his campaign. Before he got very far he was put down very savagely in June 2011 at Ram Lila by the govt. The media, of course, played their part in the mud-slinging against him as explained in this post. But even before the attack at Ramlila in June 2011 the Genie was popped out of the bottle. In comes Arvind Kejriwal (AK) to organise another anti-corruption movement demanding the JLP and the movement he decided would be headed by brand ‘Anna Hazare’.

Reports suggest Anna Hazare was not AK’s first brand choice. The pic shows a buzz in the Sunday Guardian (December 28, 2011) by Nora Chopra and explains how AK first approached former president APJ Abdul Kalam and then Infosys chief Narayana Murthy. Both seem to have declined. So the choice finally fell on Anna Hazare. The rest (and the unrest), as they tiredly say, is now history. AK wanted a JLP bill different from the one proposed by his former RTI campaign partner, Aruna Roy, through the NAC (Sonia Gandhi’s private club). Well, nobody cared if AK’s proposal was very different from Aruna Roy. But hey, he did offer more drama. Then the motley crew of Kiran Bedi, Manoj Sisodia, Kumar Vishwas, Shazia Ilmi and some more is assembled.  

So in April 2011 Anna Hazare goes on a hunger strike at Jantar Mantar in Delhi to demand a Lokpal Bill. Govt holds talks with his team and agrees to a JLP. That’s when the term ‘TeamAnna’ (TA) was coined. The dais for the agitation was decked with symbols of national pride, patriotic songs were being sung, chants of Vande Mataram and Bharat Mata. All very moving! All, except that picture of Bharat Mata as we know. That was communal. Then that Imam Bukhari called for muslims to boycott the movement as it doesn’t give voice for Muslims. Not done! So Kiran Bedi and co. rush to placate the mullah, in vain. Team Anna promised their movement was non-political, no politicians will be entertained, no communal forces would be allowed. Anna Hazare hardly bothered much as long as there was forward movement. Nothing to worry, corrections will be made in the next bout.

The straight-talking, honest Anna Hazare made a deadly mistake though. He praised Narendra Modi and Gujarat. That was that! The secular credentials of the movement were questioned and the world came down on him. Modi immediately even warned him of the consequences of praising him in a personal letter. TA must have advised Anna to make amends. So Anna visits Gujarat and screams “Ghotala hi Ghotala” and there was corruption everywhere in Gujarat; that there were rivers of alcohol and hooch flowing in Gujarat. Okay, credibility restored!

In between TA, particularly AK and Kiran Bedi, go on a media-spree mouthing shrill dialogues. They called every politician corrupt, called everyone against TA corrupt. The applause was deafening. This post will deliberately ignore allegations of tax evasion by AK, his Trust being funded by Ford Foundation, fudging and swindling through travel bills by Kiran Bedi and other financial allegations against TA. These are not really relevant in politics, are they? So the govt doesn’t make much progress and there’s another round of fasts in August 2011. This time it’s even bigger with campaigns in various parts of the country. Add to the drama the arrest and immediate release of Anna. Then there was Om Puri’s speech, KB’s Ghoongat dance. Heady cocktail! Of course, gone was the pic of Bharat Mata, now replaced by that of Mahatma Gandhi, all saffron guys were evicted. It was now truly secular. The govt eventually gives in and Anna’s fast ends. This time the juice comes from Dalit and Muslim kids. Secular TA was complete.

Then around October KB and TA come out strongly against the arrest of anti-Modi cop Sanjiv Bhatt. What exactly did TA have to do with the cop? Nothing! But well, more secular points scored. There are more foolish points to score. Carried away with the public adoration both, AK and AH, accept sham awards from NDTV and CNN-IBN. What do they call it… Umm.. Indian of the year awards! You should know you are finished when the media starts giving out awards that are deceptively political in nature. But why complain about more recognition? And in the end even the figment of victory ends in the parliament with the “Fleedom at Midnight” moment on December 29, 2011. The Congress had achieved what it wanted to and TA were left holding the baby… er.. I mean Anna Hazare.

So AK comes up with charge-sheets against 15 ministers, including the PM but excluding Sonia Gandhi. Of course, he had called MPs corrupt, murderers and rapists. A sweeping generalisation by a losing man! And so it came to July 2012 with AK himself leading the charge and going on a fast. He took the opportunity again to condemn Narendra Modi, calling him corrupt and a communalist. Let’s see, Modi has been called a lot of names but surely corrupt has hardly been one of them. Even Wikileaks revealed that a US Diplomat mentioned that Modi is “not only NOT corrupt, but incorruptible”. If AK wanted to score Congress points like a Teesta, Shabnam, Mallika, Sanjiv Bhatt, Harsh Mander or the entire media by abusing Modi, he was a bit too late for that. AK’s political ambitions, though not explicit, were slowly being revealed in bits and pieces by Anna himself.

So after 9 days of fasting in July-August and no end in sight, the stalemate was evident and visible to everyone. The Congress sat happily over the reality that TA had alienated not only their opponents and Congress but also BJP, their own supporters, the media and were left with indecisive crowds at JantarMantar. No way out! Suddenly, on August 2  a letter with 22 signatures pops up requesting TA to end the fast. How these 22 people got together, communicated with each other and how the letter was organised, written and signatures obtained (not in hand) is best left to imagination. But it was a handy exit. The other handy exit, as Congress pointed out, was to announce a full-fledged political party. This move, so that that TA could fight corruption from within the system and not without. Nothing wrong with that! When I hinted at such a happy-ending there were many who pounced on me.

Even the best laid plans can terribly go wrong. AK didn’t provide for that. In his political quest he alienated not just supporters but many of his own team members. This list of bloopers and blunders are too long but here are some lessons:

… In a movement like this the media was already paying enough attention. There was no need for AK or for TA or Anna to constantly be in the media and suck up to them with interviews, sound bites and turning panellists. TA was too naïve to see the media is a puppet there to destroy them. Never accept sham awards from the media.

… Never criticise anyone to merely score silly points. Narendra Modi was all praise for Anna and has never criticised TA or any of their members. Yet turning an anti-corruption movement to also one against Modi is a fatal mistake. TA simply had no idea how many Modi supporters had initially supported them.

… Never lose focus. If it was JLP why turn it into a demand for SIT against some ministers? Never abuse by generalisation like AK and TA did with all MPs and govt workers.

… Never antagonise and side-line your own team members in an individual quest for glory.

… Most of all, the JLP movement never had to be secular or communal. It wasn’t a pre-requisite. It should have been just open to all citizens. By constantly catering to muslims and minorities TA became another Congress party. They forgot that a huge majority of their supporters were actually anti-Congress and anti-Fake-Secularism. Stay away from unrelated cases and issues (like those of Sanjiv Bhatt). You end up being terribly stupid.

Didn’t the Bhagwad Gita say: “Now I am become death..”? TeamAnna, after calling politicians corrupt, murderers, rapists and everything else now want to become a political party. They want to become THEM. Frankly, nobody gives a damn about their political party. It was good fun for the media crooks on TV to discuss a Fourth Front right through the night on August 2. Team Anna must find solace in the fact that they haven’t been defeated or disgraced. They have definitely delivered a greater consciousness to fight corruption among the masses. But it is really too naïve to cloak a political agenda with mighty moral stands.

In the end nobody stunted TA, not the Congress, not the govt but their own team did. Though TA has stated they will seek a referendum from their supporters on forming a political alternative I don’t think that is going to happen. There is going to be no political party by TA, regardless of any silly referendum. I don’t think people were desperate for another political alternative. I cannot say who but I can definitely say there has to be one person or a group or an entity that popped the genie out of the bottle in early 2011. On August 2, 2012 the Genie went back into the bottle and will stay there for a long time. 

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