NDTV Gujarat Campaign: 'Experience Untruth, First'

His ambitions to become CM forced Shankersinh Vaghela to quit BJP, form a new party and finally merge with Congress. Ever since then, most BJP supporters have called him a “traitor”. Vaghela lost the 2009 elections from Panchmahal. In case you’re unaware, Godhra is the main town in Panchmahal. Vaghela depended on the Muslim votes in Godhra but lost those votes to someone called Karim Abdul Latif. There happens to be another Abdul Latif that most Gujaratis, especially from Ahmedabad, remember quite well. We’ll come back to the story. Barkha Dutt may know a lot about Pakistan but with pardonable pride I can claim to know a bit more about Gujarat than she does. That’s the reason why it is easy to call the bluffs, the lies and the half-truths peddled on NDTV and by various participants on Barkha’s shows. It is also why the lies and bluffs go over her head. Barkha knows precious little about Gujarat beyond Narendra Modi. Even that is mostly driven by her evident contempt for the man.

NDTV and Barkha Dutt constantly lament the condition of Muslims. Considering it’s Gujarat elections, her rants have been upped a notch. Juhapura, Muslims living on the edge, why no ticket for Muslims by Modi… the list is endless. But lately she hasn’t been able to get too far with her regular guests and panellists with her agenda of divisive debates and discussions on her shows, so a little diversion and creativity is in order. She gets two people who aren’t in politics to lunch with her over “Gujarati Thali”. She didn’t clarify whether “Gujarati Thali” meant Hindu Thali or Muslim Thali. I guess we can live with ambiguity on that though. Let’s also be grateful that Barkha didn’t call it the “Effete Thali” since she thinks Gujjus are effete. So in come Suketu Mehta, a writer and Manoj Ladwa, a solicitor. Both are NRI Gujaratis; Mehta from the US and Ladwa from UK. Ladwa seems to be the person who campaigned for UK to re-establish relations with Gujarat and Modi so you could say he’s sort of pro-Modi. Mehta evidently another lamenter of the conditions of Muslims in Gujarat, the communal divide etc. Add Barkha as extra chutney to the Thali and you have 2 against 1. Let’s deviate a bit.  

Along with Barkha, another one to have joined the Muslim “discourse” is her NDTV colleague (and often a stand-in for Barkha) – Sunetra Chaudhury. Now this Sunetra wonders whether appointment of Syed Asif Ibrahim as the new IB chief is “tokenism” in her tweets. Damn! What do we do? If you appoint a Muslim as head of IB they call it tokenism and if not, we aren’t being nice to Muslims. Which way should we jump? Sunetra then wonders how many Muslims are in RAW. Can you get more idiotic? A govt is supposed to appoint people to secret service and then disclose their name, caste, religion. NDTV! Haha! Naturally, people asked her the same questions about NDTV and she replies that one of the biggest NDTV anchors is a Muslim. I suppose she is probably referring to Barkha Dutt. In much a similar fashion, if Modi had indeed given tickets to say 3 Muslims, the same Sunetras and Barkhas would have called it “tokenism” and still continued to hang him. You see, prejudice and bigotry has no cure and will flow in any discourse regardless of what a person does. Is Barkha prejudiced? You won’t need a torch even in a dark night to establish that.

What’s the job of a moderator in a TV debate or any debate? Usually, along with managing the time and relevance to the topic, moderators also point out untruths. Do you expect Barkha to point out untruths that are convenient to her agenda? So Suketu Mehta (SM) is supposedly from Maninagar (Modi’s constituency) and he talked about how Hindu-Muslims were lovey-dovey in his time and greeted each other on festivals. Oh, they still do. And he says now there’s a ‘border’ between the Hindus and the Muslim community neighbouring his residence. Really? Since when are such borders new to Ahmedabad?

Abdul Latif was an ordinary rickshaw driver who rose to become a Mafia don with links to Dawood. His HQ was around Dariapur in Ahmedabad which also had a ‘border’ with the neighbouring Hindus in the congested walled city. Now what was Latif’s business? During the Congress regime he used to run an open bar in a ground roughly measuring 1000 sq. yards. On one end of the ground there was an ‘English’ bar and on the other there was a ‘Desi’ bar. There was nothing secret about it and it operated under the full glare of police during the Congress regime till around 1995. He was finally arrested after Keshubhai Patel became CM. In 1996 Latif contested 6 municipal seats from his area and won. Where did he contest from? JAIL!  Latif was dreaded in Ahmedabad and Hindus lived in terror in his area where arms and crimes flowed freely along with liquor. Gujarat is a “prohibition” state. In November 1997 while being ‘transported’ by the police Latif sought to take a ‘leak’ and tried to escape and was shot dead. Who was in charge of the police then? Shankersinh Vaghela! While people were not unhappy, Hindus believed Vaghela with his new break-away party, the so-called traitor, tried to score brownie points with the Hindus. Does Barkha know all this? Does SM know this? Do they talk about why there are borders not just in Maninagar? Does SM believe borders came up only after 2002? Total rubbish and untruth.

Next, SM goes on to say that it’s difficult for Muslims to get housing in a Hindu locality under the BJP rule. I am indeed surprised that Barkha divine didn’t interrupt and correct him. News channels have been wailing for long about how Shabana Azmi or Emran Hashmi hasn’t been able to get flats in Mumbai. Is Maharashtra under BJP rule too? Another untruth passes over Barkha’s nest. Convenient, eh? That’s a good question though. Why shouldn’t Muslims get housing where they want to? But do they want it? Here’s a report from HindustanTimes – December 14 (A family-friend type outlet of Barkha Dutt):

Godhra, the headquarters of Panchmahal district, has a history of communal violence. In 1980, five members of a Sindhi family, which had migrated from Pakistan during the partition, were burnt alive at Muslim-dominated Signalfalia. Their's was the lone Hindu family in the area and oldtimers say muslims wanted them to vacate their house and leave. The same report of HT adds:

In 1990, four Hindu teachers of Saifia Madarsa in Vorwad area of Godhra town were killed by Muslims, he says, adding, "the mistrust between the two communities runs very deep and Modi's goodwill mission cannot bridge the divide". Should Hindus work in Muslim outfits?

Modi’s goodwill mission cannot bridge the divide he says. Did that divide start in 2002? Any answers? Any answers Suketu, Barkha? Now such incidents are many and not all of them have ended in murders but Barkha doesn’t want to dig up facts from history nor does Suketu. TV discussions are like Viagral pleasures. Next, Modi didn’t give tickets to Muslims! Boohoooo! That wail has been on since a month with Rajdeep, Barkha and all the unholy trinities in media. Here’s what the same Hindustan Times page had to say:

"Godhra is a prestige issue for Narendra Modi. So, he fielded Muslim candidates to divide Congress votes but Congress made sure they backed off," says Firdausbhai Kothi, president of the Muslim Ganchi Samaj Panch and owner of Kothi Steel Limited. So even if Modi picks Muslim candidates; who forces them to back off? Barkha’s party? Who sacked Ghulam Vastanvi from Deoband when he claimed Muslims had progressed well in Gujarat? Hindus?

Any answers Barkha and the media mafia? Now, asking about tickets for Muslims is not a bad question. The right question is would the Muslim candidates represent all or only Muslims? Would the candidates work for Hindus too? Hindu candidates have a history of working for all members of society. If that hadn’t happened the condition of Muslims would be far worse. Nobody seems to ask! And when they do have a Muslim candidate in a legislative house what does he do? Oops... Guy warns the country of a “third wave of Muslim radicalisation” right from the middle of India’s parliament. So will the Muslims convince us that all Muslims aren’t like the Owaisis? And that next time they will throw out Owaisi? Will Barkha campaign for Owaisi to be thrown out? Oh no... you see, he’s a darling at NDTV. Ladwa points out that there were 11 Muslims in the outgoing assembly in Gujarat but Muslims themselves claim they have done nothing.

The stupid morons in the media still don’t get it that their untruths are so easy to expose. They are the ones who made Narendra Modi larger than life by constantly bitching about him like desperate mafia-wives. How is Barkha going to explain Asifa Khan’s statements which are scheduled to be aired tonight (December 16) on her show “We the peepull”? And were Muslims not given enough chance on media to present their case? Where did all the Teestas and Shabnams come from? Shabnam Hashmi goes and provokes Muslims in Juhapura but she doesn’t live there. She lives in a locality called Vastrapur (a predominantly Hindu area) in Ahmedabad.

To their credit, both Suketu and Manoj had the discussion in a very friendly manner despite their differences. Both mentioned the need for a strong Opposition in Gujarat. Ladwa even subtly mentioned Barkha was the real Opposition in Gujarat. But one cannot excuse NDTV for raking up spurious topics without enough research and without enough facts to rely on. NDTV once had a tagline: “Experience truth first”. I guess much water has flown in the Sabarmati since they dumped that tagline. Looks like they thought they had a monopoly on truth and the rest of the public is made up fools. Why not turn it around? Why not: “Experience untruth first”? That seems more suited to their approach since 2002 and towards Gujarat. 

The Roman Agent In Gujarat

He conquered many lands and kingdoms but Julius Caesar was at his wits end on how to deal with the Gauls. The little village of Asterix and others simply refused to surrender to the Roman emperor and were impossible to defeat in battle. One of Caesar’s ‘wiseguys’ suggested that they should sow anarchy and disharmony among the Gauls. Inject the citizens of Gaul with so much poison, internal conflict and hatred that they die fighting among themselves. They found a man who could do the job. Enter Tortuous Convolvulus (TC). Caesar wanted to test him but he needed no proof as the agent immediately had his senators fighting, gossiping and speaking ill of the emperor himself. Now this guy TC was so devious that once, when thrown to lions in a circus, he made the lions fight among themselves and kill each other. So you know what talent we are talking about. Take a look at his pic. TC oozes cunning and deceit from head to toe, doesn’t he?

So Caesar sends TC to Gaul to divide and destroy them. On the way he has all the members on his ship fighting each other too. When pirates are about to attack his ship he even sets the pirates fighting among each other by claiming he paid gold to one of them for not being attacked. TC manages to create havoc in the Gaul village but they eventually realise his scheme and turn the tables on him. They plot and prove to the Romans that TC is a traitor and had fooled their army. TC is sent back to Rome for punishment. It is suspected, though, that with his cunning and deceit TC would have escaped punishment.  

Unfortunately, good old Caesar didn’t have Indian TV media in his time. He wouldn’t have needed a TC then. All he would have had to do was ask a couple of Indian news channels and their celebrities to land in Gaul before a battle and they would have done the job better than TC. You know, like our own Romans have media channels doing the job for them. We have this little state called Gujarat which is troublesome, is headed by a man with some magic potion, who defies the empire at every turn. So every time there’s an election battle around, our own TCs land in Gujarat to divide people. In particular, their chosen target for the divisive agenda is the Muslim community. The topic? Of course, the 2002 riots. Even if Muslims have moved on our media morons will never let them forget and will keep re-opening old wounds.  

A little bit of history is in order. Let’s take Ahmedabad for example. The city is divided into East and West for reference by the Sabarmati River. Till the mid-1980s the western parts of Ahmedabad were undeveloped, had sparse population. Hindus and Muslims lived alongside each other in the eastern part but Hindus slowly started migrating to the western parts in huge numbers. Does Sagarika Ghose or Barkha Dutt ever explain why? It was riot-fatigue that made Hindus move to the western parts and, of course, better housing. Most Hindus in Ahmedabad do feel that they received a raw deal in all the communal riots till then under Congress rule. Groups of Muslims also shifted to the western parts. A few are concentrated in a middle class area called Paldi while low income groups huddled up in one of the largest ghettos called Juhapura. Hindus practically used to refer to Juhapura as Pakistan. There is a historical animosity that wasn’t brought about by Narendra Modi. This historical animosity did come under a series of Congress govts. Will Sagarika and Barkha tell you that? No! The MSM folks seem to have discovered Muslims in Ahmedabad and Gujarat only since 2002. I need not add that in all their shows they conveniently forget that 2002 wouldn’t have happened if the Godhra train burning hadn’t happened.  

Tragedies can be man-made and natural. Have Muslims moved on from the earthquake (which claimed over 20000 lives and much destruction of property) of 2001? Have they moved on from 2002? Has Gujarat moved on from both? The answer is YES! There may be a few families that may still be suffering the pain and that need not be only from Muslims. So what makes people like Barkha Dutt rush to Gujarat and frequently keep injecting a sense of permanent “victimhood” in Muslims? This is not just in Gujarat but they do it across India. If Muslims keep falling for this propaganda they may risk the danger of pushing themselves further into victimhood. Barkha was in Juhapura to talk to rickshaw drivers and others on their conditions but she doesn’t tell you the full story. She sexes up her report with incomplete stories. Take a look at this map below.

On the right you can see Paldi. Most private buses to Saurashtra region (Rajkot, Bhavnagar etc) start from Paldi. Till 2002 the route (in black) through Juhapura to the Sarkhej highway, onward to Rajkot, is the route they use to follow. Post-Godhra 2002 all these buses take the longer route (marked in red) to avoid passing through Juhapura which Barkha so devotedly covers on her trip. Wonder why? My route-marking may not be the exact roads but shows the direction very accurately. Bus operators were willing to go through a longer route as against taking risks. Can Barkha explain why? Now, since the red route has become quite established, it’s not just Hindu bus operators but Muslim operators also follow that route. Truth is, for a long time Hindus have avoided going through the route past Juhapura unless absolutely necessary. Things are different now. There is no fear and most people drive past Juhapura. This was the same fear and fatigue that drove most Hindus from the eastern parts of Ahmedabad to the western parts. Juhapura is just one example that I’m giving. There are many other stories that the Tortuous Convolvuluses in the media aren’t going to tell. The post is not about history but only refers to what Barkha touched upon in her show.

Interestingly, look at the title of both Barkha’s and Sagarika’s shows. Both talk about a “Muslim narrative”. That they are identical shouldn’t be any surprise at all. The headlines could have made a happily married couple out of both channels. Their only agenda was to somehow smear Narendra Modi just around the elections. Try and whip up some anti-Modi sentiments through Muslims and hope Caesar is happy. While harping on no Muslim being given an election ticket by the BJP someone on NDTV asked Nidhi Razdan why Omar Abdullah hasn’t given any tickets to Hindus. No answer! The same agents never talk about the pogrom or systematic ethnic cleansing that happened in Kashmir. In Gujarat, Muslims now live peacefully, many who left have also returned. There is no returning for Hindus who were driven out of Kashmir. No govt or media speaks for them. This is one of the reasons Narendra Modi has become an icon for Hindus. Caesar’s agents don’t seem to get this simple fact or happily choose to live in denial.  

Most things that Barkha discussed on her show are worth the trash can. On December 11 she gently brought up the ‘Muslim’ agenda by asking if development is significant if there is “no justice”. This is as much a lie as any you can get from agents. Gujarat 2002 is probably the only communal riots where many have been convicted and punished. Increasingly, even BJP supporters wonder why people like Nirmala Sitharaman and others even appear on her agenda-driven shows. Any Muslim who mentions Modi favourably or appears with him is permanently tarred by the media, the Congress and by the NGO criminals who have made a killing with the riots story.  

While harping on Irfan Pathan’s appearance on stage with Narendra Modi, Barkha couldn’t conceal her anguish. Even Sunetra Chaudhury of NDTV couldn’t conceal her contempt for this event in her tweets. So what riles up these folks? Even way back in 2007 when India won the T-20 world cup Narendra Modi’s govt had awarded 5 lakhs to the Pathan brothers. Modi applauds achievements of any Gujarati quite frequently. He lauds Sunita Williams, the Pathans and even those not from Gujarat. The media doesn’t seem to have any problems with Bollywood actors campaigning for Modi, so why a problem with Irfan Pathan? Are they suggesting he’s a Muslim first and not Indian first? And a successful cricketer? Muslims must guard against such clever spin. Caesar’s agents may not like it because all they want is that Narendra Modi be hanged sent to prison or at least apologise since they have already stuck the “convict badge” on him. Programs by the Barkhas and their tweets and other communication aren’t those of journalists. They sound more and more like electioneering lobbyists and people are able to see through their messages now. This is what bothers them.  

Then Barkha sits around wondering why her tweets and comments are questioned even by those who are blocked by her. That is laughable and can only come from a moron who doesn’t really know how twitter works or how public figures will always be assessed by people. By her stupid logic she should know that Narendra Modi has practically blocked her long back. He doesn’t give any interviews to her or any of the celebs from NDTV and yet she keeps hovering over 2002 and chasing Narendra Modi. Doesn’t she get his message? Actually, the more Barkha rants against Modi the more he seems to get popular and she doesn’t even get that. Real question is not whether Muslims have moved on from 2002. It is whether Barkha has moved on from 2002, from Radiagate. It’s whether she has moved on from the ‘Shoddy Journalism’ episode. It is whether she has moved on from the Chaitanya Kunte episode.  

As clever as Tortuous Convolvulus was, he failed to destroy the spirit and unity of the Gauls or their fierce defence of their little village against the Romans. The Roman agents from Delhi keep turning up in Gujarat as a regular ritual before every election. And yes, they do go back severely exposed and feeling stupid like TC. Convolvulus was clever and deceitful enough to escape the lions but I wonder if our Roman agents can escape the lions from Gujarat.

Gujarat: Breaking Rules - Part 2

True story: Nutcase-1 draws a triangular route on the back of a cocktail napkin at a restaurant and says “Let’s start an airline”. Nutcase-2 responds: “You’re crazy, let’s do it”. That’s strategy for you. That’s how Rollin King and Herb Kelleher started Southwest Airlines. It was the start of the low-cost, no-frills, no-tickets, no seat allotments and no-food, no-appeasement airline. All they served in-flight was Peanuts.
 

It’s the most cheerful airline and the only one to make profits over a long period since starting early 1970s. A story about the airline is, naturally, called NUTS! Their aircrafts were painted as sharks, whales or the American eagle. They broke every established practice and rule of the airline industry. A mission can be shared by many people, Vision is usually of an “individual” nature; it’s rare that two people share the same vision. What does Southwest deliver; just low fares? That’s the tangible part. The intangible, non-visible part is the joy, the “experience”. That experience is what endears an organisation to customers or endears even a politician to citizens. People go back to the same restaurant not just for the food but for the ‘experience’, customers return to the same stores, airlines for the experience.

These people are reading newspapers. That’s not very hard to tell, is it? I can tell you what they’re reading. They’re reading all the poll analysis and predictions. You know, like the ones by Rajdeep Sardesai, Yogendra Yadav, Prannoy Roy or India Today and many other pundits. They are also analysing the GDP figures of all the states, poverty figures of all states. Why all this? Of course, they have to decide who to vote for! That’s what normal people do, don’t they? They sit around and analyse all the figures, manifestos, claims and other stuff put out by the govt and media before they decide who to vote for. No? Well, all that stuff is good for debates and policy making. Ordinary people know it in their gut. Whether the economy is good or bad, they know it in their gut. The same “experience” that draws them back to a restaurant or airline also draws them to a politician or makes them reject him. People feel good at visible development and experience it but they also vote based on the intangible, non-visible experience. The more connected a politician is the better the experience. Narendra Modi knows to connect.

Vision is usually an individual’s or at the most a few. It is therefore unique that a politician could get a good part of the population of his state involved in his vision and mission. This is what Narendra Modi has managed to accomplish. Even the best CMs deliver results but in this century none has managed to get people so involved in his adventure; that of making Gujarat a great state in many respects. How does he do it? Like I said in Part-1 there are two kinds of development; one that is very visible and one that is not. The visible one drives pride and participation, the non-visible one drives experience. Anyone visiting Gujarat is going to talk about the great roads, power supply, Sabarmati river-front and so on. An exception is bimbos who pass for editors of news channels who might also talk about food that has a “religious divide”.

Let’s talk about Sabarmati. People used to once call it Sabar-Matti (Mud) since there was never water in it except monsoon. Now there’s water all year round and that itself is a sight. But did Modi stop there? No... He wanted to paint it like whales and eagles like Southwest. He envisioned a massive river-front project that may now have hotels and other buildings and a great place for people. If not a sea-front, Ahmedabad can have a river-front. This much circulated image of the holy Yamuna and Sabarmati on the net says a lot about the vision of two CMs (Expense figures not vouched for). That’s visible. Sabarmati also provides water for Ahmedabad and other towns. What is not visible is that it has shut down many bore-wells in many towns. Earlier the underground bore hard-water was salty, contained arsenic and in many places had TDS (Total Dissolved Solids) of over 2500. The areas which got municipal water had TDS below 600 which is within permissible levels for drinking water. Yeah… you’re not going to hear about this. This water supply is visible to only those who use it. Even more, the improved quality of water is only experienced and not visible.

I talked about the English language usage being an issue in Part-1. It was poor in Gujarat and affected higher studies, technology and global transactions. Ever heard about action on it? I doubt it. SCOPE (Society for Creation of Opportunity through Proficiency in English) is a project created by Modi. It teaches functional English to students even in Gujarati medium schools, colleges and other institutions, even commercial organisations. The programme is partly paid for by the govt and partly by the participants for students. It is delivered by private partners. Even Rajasthan was considering implementing this. This is not visible, it is experienced. It is felt in the gut! The MSM may have never noticed it but it took the Supreme Court to applaud the PDS system in Gujarat. That’s not visible, that’s an experience. It’s felt in the gut.

There is no free power supply. Farmers too have to pay, at a lower rate. Instead of bleeding the state with free power Modi had sent Babus and teams to various farmer-groups to educate them on better use of power; to use power-saving devices and machines. While the media propaganda machinery will harp on farmer suicides you won’t hear of this. Farmer suicide, when compared to other states, is not that severe and all suicides aren’t farm-related. It’s true, even one suicide is one too many. But the other work is not visible. It’s experienced in the gut. There are many others, the list can go on and on. Vaanche Gujarat is a reading program. Vanbandhu Kalyan is a programme for forest dwellers. Vibrant Gujarat is seen and also experienced. Vibrant Gujarat is a path-breaking initiative that invited visitors and investors. It’s now emulated by many other states. Despite the size of the venture, the last Vibrant Gujarat 2011 wasn’t even covered by media. The haters in the media are like that guest of Mullah Nasruddin.

Mullah Nasruddin had a friend from Delhi visiting him in his small town. He gave him a guided tour of his town in the evening. Mullah showed him the biggest river in town and the guest said: “That’s a river? Any gutter in Delhi would be bigger than that”. A stunned Mullah then took him to the biggest temple where 90% of the people in the village prayed and the guest said: “You call that a temple? Silly! You should see Birla Mandir in Delhi then you’ll know what a temple is”. Dejected Mullah decided not to show him anymore and they went home and had an early dinner. But as they sat outside on the cots Mullah couldn’t help pointing at a big bright full-moon to his friend. The friend from Delhi sniggered: “You call that a moon? You should come to Delhi, you’ll see the largest moon of your life and it shines for everybody not just 90% of people”. Mullah smiled and said “Yes, maybe one day I’ll come to Delhi” and went to bed. So you see, for the Rajdeeps, Barkhas, Sagarikas, Arnabs, Ashotushes, Wagles, Kanwals, Aakar Patels and many others the moon in Delhi is far bigger than the moon in Gujarat. Their blinkered vision cannot and need not be altered. People feel it in their gut.

To the luxury airliners of Delhi this ‘Chaiwalla’ from Gujarat was unacceptable. That he is far more skilled and talented than other politicians is unacceptable. So Modi had to break another rule. He decided to fly low cost. He took to the internet like no politician in Indian history has ever done. He communicated his vision, thoughts, problems of the state, achievements and every issue with people. He took to creating websites, he took to Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, GooglePlus and 3D campaigns. Before they could even say ‘NaMo’, he had built a vast army of followers on the net in India and abroad who spread his messages far and wide. They combated the lies of the MSM and exposed those frequently. MSM could get away with spurious stories for a while in 2002-03 but not later. Every LIAR in the media, NGO and his political opposition today stands exposed. Nobody knew if Modi was Brahmin or ST or OBC. Both NDTV and CNN-IBN made sure everybody knew after the 2007 elections with their special stories on him. Nobody cared. The People of Gujarat showed they cared for a performer and not for which caste or community he belonged to. Modi has made the MSM redundant for his political pursuits.

The MSM, beaten at its game of 2002 riots, now has a new line: “Modi is a regional leader and unfit for PM”. They seek confirmation of this from every possible idiot. The Social Genius, before a trip to Gujarat, sends out a subtle message about having tea with the Chaiwalla. Some may have missed the viciousness behind the subtlety but it exposes the filthy mind behind it. We need to start realising and treasuring the fact that performers from ordinary backgrounds can aspire to high offices in this land. To Modi, Gujarat is ‘One people under one roof’. The road ahead for India has to be ‘one nation under one roof’. Anything else is a deception that is bound to fail and bring more misery to the poor and backward. Does Modi have weaknesses or flaws? Maybe! But those pale into insignificance when you consider the heads of GOI stumbling from one problem to another; from defending one scam to another.

Edward De Bono, a prominent writer on thinking skills, said it best. You can analyse the past but you have to ‘design’ the future. Right now, Modi is the only one dealing with the present and still designing the future. The road ahead for India needs more such daring leaders, not mindless appeasers. It is December 6 today. I can predict the media morons will use the occasion to run more stories on Babri and attempt to divide Muslims and Hindus on the eve of Gujarat elections. Some of his fans tend to call him “Mahatma Modi”. There is no need for such dubious titles. Let’s not have any more mahatmas who become beyond question by the ordinary man. India will have to break a lot of rules in the road ahead. Gujarat and Modi have only shown the way.