Open Letter to the Prime Minister

Dear Prime Minister:

Under normal circumstances I would have addressed this letter to Shri Narendra Modi, and not to the office he holds. But the events of 29^th August force me to address it to you as I feel you have forgotten that you have been elected to this office by an India that was fed up with and sick of the political architecture that the Congress and its Left cabal had erected over the past 70 years. The decisive mandate you won after 35 years of minority-coalition rule, was not an accident but a deliberate choice made by the people. Whatever may be the merit in the opposition’s allegation that you won with only 31% vote share, it does not take anything away from the fact that, under the prevalent first-past-the-post system of electoral arithmetic, you were decisively elected as the best of the alternatives before the people. One does not have to feel apologetic about it; nor is there any need to give long explanations backed by data that no one really cares about.

The past four-plus years have been the best on many fronts. The economy is upbeat despite the devaluation of the rupee; foreign policy is proactive; most of the schemes to uplift the weaker sections are delivering desirable results; there is greater socio-political integration of the different parts of the country (the North-Easterner is no longer looked upon as a Chinese); the BJP is ruling in 15 states that account for nearly 70% of the population; large scale communal riots have been controlled; corruption has been brought down due to DBT, digitalization of financial transactions, and a reduced interface between government and public; emphasis on cleanliness and sanitation is yielding health benefits to the poorest sections, etc. etc.

But where your government has lost is in the battle of perceptions. The entrenched cabal that had taken it for granted that it would be able to control the narrative even if it lost power is still calling most of the shots. This cabal has infiltrated the Academia, the Judiciary, and the Media. There is a whole industry that nurtures these people. Perhaps it is a wrong term to label them as Communists, Marxists, or Leftists. In fact, they are happy with these labels as they consider them as badges of honour. In truth, they are just Anarchists, who use the universities, the courts and the media to promote themselves much more than any ideology. They are to be found everywhere in the free world, where they have established an incestuous network that feeds on one another. They fly first or business class, stay in 5-star hotels, charge enormous fees for lectures, and globetrot from seminar to seminar, holding forth on how to improve the lives of the poor. They plant seeds of discontent wherever they go, teach indiscipline and rouse the people to take up arms against inconvenient (to them) governments. The Media, with which they are deeply embedded, gives maximum exposure to their agendas, shouting or shutting down contrary opinions. In the last few years social media has come up to counter this narrative, but it is an unequal battle between an entrenched army of individuals holding demonic weapons against a rag tag company of people with small paper pins. Social Media platforms like Twitter and Facebook have also been infiltrated by their foot-soldiers, and before long we may find ourselves banished from there too.

This cabal is financed not only by external entities inimical to India, prominent among who are the Christian missionary organizations in the West (who are hell bent upon replacing Hinduism with their faith all across the country); the hostile ISI of Pakistan that is equally hell bent upon wresting Kashmir from us; but also by our own governments through the universities and other academic institutions. Universities and many academic institutions like JNU, Jadavpur, Osmania, IITs, IIMs, are increasingly coming under the control of these elements, and it is our public money that funds them.

The judiciary has made a mockery of the rule of law. It is jungle law that has been prevailing ever since India became free in name. Powerful criminals are rarely touched and their battery of lawyers either browbeat the judiciary or greases its wheels to safeguard the interests of their clients. The Supreme Court opens at midnight to hear frivolous petitions on behalf of convicted terrorists, while other orders to stay the arrest of criminals are passed on phone calls received from members of this cabal. Crores of cases are languishing for decades in the courts across the country, but the Lordships have no hesitation in hearing petitions of criminals who are endangering the very security of the country. The alacrity with which the Supreme Court took upon itself the case of the arrested Naxal masterminds on 29^th August, ordering that they be kept under house arrest instead of being taken into judicial custody, points to the amount of rot that has seeped into the system. The cabal has activated the NHRC to question the action of the Maharashtra police, and soon many other anti-India NGO’s like Amnesty will jump on the bandwagon. A known, convicted criminal, Lalu is pontificating from hospital beds, or while in transit from one marriage reception to another, because a porous legal system gives him that space to feign illness and get hospitalized, and then hold forth to the Media.

In June this year I had published an open letter to the BJP President Shri Amit Shah, in which I had listed the areas where the party and the government needed to focus to ensure another five-year term for you as the Prime Minister. If this country has to emerge as a dynamic whole, where every citizen becomes empowered, then it is imperative that the BJP returns to power with you as the Prime Minister in 2019. While your core constituency is ready to support you without any reservations, there are a vast number of new and old voters who are not very sure if they would like to vote back the BJP and Narendra Modi. Goebbelsian propaganda by the vested interests within and enemies abroad has given rise to doubts about your model of governance. Resort to outright lies and distortion by these elements has peaked with the recent interaction of the Congress President with the media abroad. Even the floods in Kerala that have wreaked havoc in that state are being blamed on the Central government and there is a constituency that is willing to believe such nonsense.

I think you require a quick reassessment of the situation and if remedial action is not initiated immediately, you may find yourself on the opposition benches in 2019, to the utter dismay of Nationalists and the delight of criminals.

What are the areas of priority that I think need immediate attention?

1.    Communication: You must wrest the narrative from the opposition who are currently calling all the shots. Mann ki baat is fine, but you need to come more often before the people on Television. You don’t have to give interviews to media anchors. Every week you can appear at prime time (say 9 PM) on DD TV and address the nation through this medium. You can tell the people about all the new things the government has done during the week, while giving the lie to opposition canards. This communication will inculcate trust while removing any doubts that the people would have.

There is no need for BJP spokespersons to participate in fake debates on TV channels. Instead, apart from you, senior ministers of your cabinet could regularly address the people on DD TV every evening at 9 PM and talk about important initiatives and policy matters concerning that ministry. Capturing the 9 PM slot will deprive all these fake media channels of a powerful propaganda tool.

2.   Overhaul in Defence Ministry: The perception in the armed forces and among the public is that our Defence procurements are inadequate, and there is a lot of opacity in procurement of equipment. It is because, in the MOD, a clique of bureaucrats is given much more authority than the armed forces personnel. There is a lot of resentment among the officers who have to kowtow to civilian babus who have not the foggiest idea about modern weaponry or warfare. At the same time, despite OROP, a lot remains to be done to give just monetary compensation to the fighting arms. Babus are controlling the budgets and deciding who gets what. Representation of armed forces personnel on committees that decide defence matters is negligible. You also need to seriously put into action the idea of appointing a Joint Chief of Services so that you get a unity of command that eliminates confusion and delay in decision-making. Shekhar Gupta may start rumors of a military takeover, but these are best ignored and the rumormonger punished.

I have nothing against Ms. Nirmala Seetharaman, but she could have been more useful in a portfolio other than Defence. With a perpetually hostile Pakistan on our West, a belligerent China in the North, and an unfriendly Islamic state in the East, we need a DM who has a complete knowledge of the borderlands, their history, geography, and military capability. If you do not wish to appoint a retired military officer to this sensitive portfolio, it would be better to look for a scientist, preferably from ISRO, who could be inducted as a cabinet minister. At the same time the Secretary, MOD is best not from the usual IAS cadre but someone with a scientific background in military technology.

3.     Controlling Judicial Overreach: Of late the judiciary has become a law unto itself. The cavalier manner in which the SC has intervened in the arrests of people who were allegedly conspiring to assassinate you and Mr. Amit Shah, is nothing but scandalous. To order that these people should not be held in police or judicial custody but kept under house arrest is a new low in Indian practice of law. I am not a lawyer, but I do not think there is any provision in the Indian Constitution that permits a conspirator to be kept under “house arrest.” To further illustrate this complete contempt for the people by the judicial officers comes the news that two judges of the Madras High Court want the NHAI to provide separate lanes and toll booths for judges on highways. Not that they actually pay for their use like other ordinary citizens. They have threatened your government with “contempt of court” if these directions are not implemented forthwith. Their Lordships cannot be made to wait in line or show their ID’s at tollbooths, as their time is immensely precious. What they do with their time is best illustrated by the following statistics of pending cases in different courts:

Supreme Court:             60,000+

                           24 High Courts:          4,00,000+

                           Lower Courts:         2,75,00,000+

People are waiting for decades for verdicts while many of them become destitutes paying lawyers and court fees. Col. Purohit and Sadhvi Pragya are examples of victims of a draconian system under which any person can be held and tortured for indefinite periods, on suspicion alone, and without framing of charges. Why no “house arrest” for them?

I don’t know how the Constitution empowers you to deal with this menace of judicial overreach, but I am sure there are enough experts in the government who can suggest remedial methods. But, what I do know is that you can appoint competent law officers in the government’s judicial offices of ED, CBI, Attorney General, and Solicitor General etc. To represent the government in the courts you need sharp, experienced advocates, not fixers. There are many such people whom one encounters on Social Media, but somehow the government does not seem to think of them. In the Urban Naxals case, I am sure, a competent lawyer would not have let the matter of “house arrest” go meekly and unchallenged.

Mr. Prime Minister, time is one commodity that we, as a nation, cannot afford to lose any more of. Four-and-a-half years have passed since you entered the Parliament as a newly elected PM. All the good work done in this period will come to naught if you lose control of the narrative when it matters most. Maybe you are tired and feel that you have had enough. You are perfectly within your rights to say, “Enough is enough” and retire to an Himalayan abode to spend the rest of your days in contemplation. But, think of the people whom you have led to believe that “achhe din” are around the corner. Can you let them down when they are prepared to follow you unconditionally? Remember how they supported the Demonetization scheme despite so many hardships. Even today they are willing to accept higher fuel and gas prices, devaluation of the Rupee, and other such inconveniences because they have implicit trust in your intentions and personal incorruptibility. Today you cannot withdraw from the battle. In fact you don’t have that choice. So, winning the next General Election with an absolute majority must become an article of faith with you and your party. To achieve that objective you must take whatever action is needed. People of India will back you to the hilt. So, if it needs drastic measures like imposition of emergency and suspension of the Constitution, please do not hesitate. The opposition and the media, with some elements in the judiciary are already dreaming that there is an unspoken emergency like situation in the country. Why not make their dreams come true?

Thank you,

Yours truly

Vijaya Dar

August 30, 1018

Can Religions Really Reform?

On 14^th July 1960 a small group of people gathered at the base of the tallest Alpine massif, close to where engineers were carving the Mont Blanc tunnel that connects France with Italy. This group had gathered to witness the “End of the World” which would take place at precisely 1.45 PM.  As the time approached there was a great deal of crying and wailing and someone even blew the last trumpet. A one-time Milanese pediatrician, Elio Bianca, the prophet of this cult, afterwards calmly pronounced: “We made a mistake.” The New York Times carried the news under the headline: “World Fails to End.” This group was not the first, nor will it be the last, to predict the dissolution of the earth. From the time man discovered religion, prophets of all kind have populated this earth, mostly making similar predictions. Religious works have come down through the oral route until the discovery of writing, and were widely circulated following the invention of the printing press. Brilliant minds have engaged themselves in the study of these texts and have used them for making historical pronouncements like the dating of Creation by the redoubtable James Ussher (1581-1656), Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of Ireland. A student of Trinity College, Dublin, Ussher was a versatile scholar. Studying astronomy, history, and various sources of biblical chronology, Ussher determined the exact date on which his God created the Earth. His work named Annalis Veteris Testamenti, which calculated the timetable of creation, was published in 1650. It was incorporated in the authorized version of The Bible in 1701, and since then the faithful have been seeing creation through the same religious lens.

Ussher precisely dated Creation to the evening preceding Sunday, 23^rd October 4004 B.C. He also went on to assert that Adam and Eve were banished from Paradise on Monday the 10^th of November in the same year. The poor couple barely managed to stay for just a couple of weeks in the Garden of Eden. He also informs us that Noah’s ark alighted on Mount Ararat on 5^th May 1491 B.C.

It is not my purpose here to single out Judeo/Christianity for continuing to have such obscurantist views on Creation. In fact, the Judeo/Christian world has produced some of the most brilliant original thinkers and experimenters in all fields of science. Yet, in spite of an explosion in scientific investigation especially in the field of geophysics that tells us that our planet could be over 4 billion years old, and that the present configuration of the continents is only the latest of the many worlds that have formed on this earth, there is a large number of people out there who still hold on to similar beliefs as professed by the Rev. James Ussher.

Religion has been used by the powerful to keep the masses subjugated by invoking the wrath of God, filling the minds of the uneducated and the illiterate with fear. Others have been put to the sword, ostensibly for having different views, but actually out of greed for their lands and possessions. The European annihilation of the indigenous natives of the Americas was justified in the name of Christianity, but the motive behind this destruction was nothing but greed for land and gold. The Crusades were also wars fought for plunder, but disguised as holy wars to reclaim a piece of Christian real estate that had fallen into the hands of the believers of a new religion that had sprung up in the sands of Arabia. Islam too has fought its holy wars and hundreds of millions of lives have been sacrificed in its pursuit for glory and hegemony. Even before the advent of Christianity and Islam, there have been holy wars in the name of one God or another. Each one of these ambitious warlords or kings had a God in whose name his armies would march to subdue and conquer nations to satisfy their lust for worldly things.

From time to time, when atrocities in the name of a religion have reached a crescendo, there have been calls from within for a movement to reform it. Almost all religions have gone through this phase. But every reformist movement has ended in splitting a religion into numerous denominations, producing volumes of scriptural texts that lay down the rituals that an adherent needs to follow. The result was not reform but a further fragmentation of people that only gave rise to more confrontation and more violence. We saw it in the Christian world in the bloody wars between the Catholics and the Protestants. Although there is no room for violence in Buddhism and Jainism, yet both these religions have split into sects that prescribe separate rituals and paths towards salvation. Hinduism too has founded a number of philosophical systems and each one has its own defenders.

Islam, a religion that is followed by nearly one-fifth of the world’s population has also split into numerous sects, each one at war with another. The cycle of bloody violence that this fragmentation has started does not appear to have run its course yet. Afghanistan, where according to M. J. Akbar, the Cold War (which he calls the Third World War) ended, has become the land where the seeds of the Fourth World War have been sown. This is a war that is now being waged by the warriors of Islam against the rest of the world. This war has been going on for a quarter of a century now, and there appear to be no signs of it abating any time soon. The unspeakable horror of the massacre of young school children in Peshawar by the Pakistani Taliban was quickly followed by the broad-daylight storming of the Charlie Hebdo office resulting in the cold-blooded murder of journalists, policemen, and civilian hostages. The Boko Haram atrocities in Nigeria and the gruesome beheadings of hostages by ISIS warlords in the Levant have brought about worldwide revulsion and repugnance. Afghanistan continues to receive its daily dose of violence through suicide bombers who think nothing of extinguishing their own lives while bringing death and destruction to hundreds of innocents around them. The ISIS takeover of Syria and the Levant resulted in a massive emigration of civilians from these countries to the West, but along with the refugees the West received a large number of fundamentalists who wanted to convert their host nations to their own culture and religion. Acts of extreme violence are almost a daily occurrence in European countries that have espoused “multiculturalism” as a new credo. Canada is the latest destination for this violence, but its political leadership continues to be like ostriches in the sand. Multiculturalism is nothing but a new form of Ghettoization. It is but natural that all immigrants to a new country seek fellow nationals and try to live side by side with them. There is a certain amount of security in a shared culture, language, race and possibly religion. Ghettoes are born from these environments when the local populations find their presence offensive or provocative and they move away leaving the space for more immigrants to occupy. This is the truth of multiculturalism. There is practically no assimilation, but instead, increased isolation.

When Indians emigrated, not as indentured labour, but for higher education and employment, first to England and then to America and other parts of the Western world, they too lived in similarly ghettoized parts of London, New York, Toronto, and similar cities. But, over a period of time, as they moved up the educational and economic ladders, they spread out over the continents and the countries they had immigrated to. Today most Indians are largely assimilated and integrated in the cultures of the host nations. Is it due to the fact that their Indic culture and civilization is “like the thousand-branched Banyan tree of the Rig Veda, assimilating thousands of diversities into one trunk”?

Recently Saudi Arabia, the official custodian of Islam, publicly executed with the sword, a young woman, Esraa Al-Ghamgham, for speaking against the government. A video depicting this gruesome act has gone viral on social media, and elsewhere. What was her crime besides speaking against the Government? It appears that she was also a Shia by faith, something that is anathema in Sunni Saudi! It is believed that her husband and father have also been taken into custody. Only time will tell what their fate will be! Esraa is not the first victim of a strident Islam that brooks no dissent and uses “extreme prejudice” to eliminate those who are trying to reform its harsh contours. Nor is she likely to be the last. Sunni Pakistan has become a graveyard for the non-Sunnis and followers of other beliefs. The blasphemy law is so drafted that an accused has practically no chance of mounting a defence, and is condemned from the moment an accusation is levelled. Even an internationally respected scientist of the stature of Dr. Abdus Salam, who shared a Noble Prize for Physics in 1979, did not escape the wrath of these obscurantists, for not being a Sunni. Born in a family of Ahmadiyaa Muslims, the headstone on his grave was defaced, erasing the word “Muslim” from it. Ahmadiyyas have been declared as non-Muslims by the Pakistan Government, as per an amendment of the Constitution of that country.

Defaced Headstone of Dr. Abdus Salam's Grave

Protests against these gruesome and inhuman acts continue to remain muted at best. Most of the outrage is found on social media, which does not have the same reach as Television and press. When the Charlie Hebdo attacks happened in Paris, Taslima Nasreen, the Bangladeshi writer living in exile in India, wrote in her blog (Times of India, 13^th January, 2015): “Will gunmen get me too? Ending terror requires that Islam is reformed, modernized.” Another Muslim writer, living under a death threat since 1989, tweeted his solidarity with the French magazine. In a condemnation of the attack Salman Rushdie wrote: “Religion, a medieval form of unreason, when combined with modern weaponry becomes a real threat to our freedoms. This religious totalitarianism has caused a deadly mutation in the heart of Islam and we see the tragic consequences in Paris today.” “Yes, Islam needs to reform,” is the phrase we read, but it is not gathering the momentum it requires to become an international catchphrase. Political correctness, left-liberalism, and communist ideology have aligned with Islamic extremism in the search for votes in democracies. Entrenched cabals, who use religion as a weapon to control the lives and minds of their people, rule the majority of Muslim nations.

The problem is that both Christianity and Islam proclaim that they are the word of God and theirs is the only way to salvation and redemption. Listening to Imran Khan taking the oath as the latest Prime Minister of Pakistan has come as a shocking revelation to many like me. It is available on YouTube and those who haven’t heard it should do so to understand how Islam overrides everything else in that country.

So how does one begin to reform what God Himself is supposed to have said? The conflicts generated by various interpretations given by humans to scripture have only fractured society in mutually exclusive segments, while retaining the core principles or beliefs of a religion. So how and where does one start with reforms? Each interpretation has been an attempt at reform, but we are nowhere near finding a solution to the problem. Various attempts at making a universal religion that would be embraced by all have met with no success. Emperor Akbar had proclaimed his universal faith “Din-e-Ilahi” without it finding any lasting traction. Even godless beliefs like Marxism and Atheism have given rise to despots whose regimes have been as violent and bloody as the followers of some ordained beliefs. Atheists and communists too can be as fanatical in their disbelief as the believers.

The only reform that will be truly meaningful is a complete renunciation of all kinds of religions. But that requires the entire humanity to become saints. Since we know that to be an impossible dream, I suppose the world will go on till the human race doesn’t wipe itself out in an orgy of violence that will extinguish all signs of life from earth. Science tells us that the earth is not cooling as fast as some other planets in the universe because of the presence of radioactive elements. The presence of tectonic plates will continue to create new continental configurations which will break up to form new mountains and oceans, and in some future age, millions or even billions of years from new, a new race of humans may evolve. A future geologist may find fossilized evidence of our existence, but we will have left no trace of our gods, our religions, and our bloody conflicts. Fortunately, for the new humans we will leave no legacy, and hopefully they will not make the same mistakes as us in discovering God and religion.

Vijaya Dar

August 21, 2018

Why Rahul Gandhi would be a greater disaster than Manmohan Singh as PM?

I begin this piece with a quote from the Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset, who wrote in “The Revolt of the Masses” that was published in 1929, that “The characteristic note of our time is the dire truth that the mediocre soul, the commonplace mind, knowing itself to be mediocre, has the gall to assert its right to mediocrity, and goes on to impose itself where it can.” When the former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the other so-called spokespersons of the Congress keep repeating the mantra that Rahul Gandhi has “outstanding credentials to be nominated” as the Prime Minister of India, it validates Ortega’s observation about the commonplace mind trying to impose a mediocre soul on the country.  What are these outstanding credentials that are being touted by the Congress leaders? Apart from him being born in the Family with its appurtenances of abundant wealth and privilege; as also the fortuitous circumstance of a respected surname, Rahul Gandhi “partially” typifies Ortega’s mass man who “is the self-satisfied specialist in a post-industrial society who knows expertly his own corner of the universe but is ignorant of the rest: a ‘learned ignoramus.’ The mass man is interested in automobiles, anesthetics, and all manner of sundries. And these things confirm his profound lack of interest in civilization itself. For all these things are merely products of civilization and the passion he displays for them makes more crudely obvious his insensibility to the principles which made them possible.” Why “partially?” - because he does not qualify to be called an expert knower of the corner of his own universe. The Congress has only two power centers – and he happens to be one of them. Yet, he comes up, at metronomic regularity, with absurdities that confirm his profound lack of knowledge about anything. Be it the latest allegation against the Modi government on the Rafaele deal with Dassault in France, or the ridiculous question as to why BHEL was not commissioned to manufacture mobile phones. From wanting to see Barack Obama’s bed sheet marked Made in Uttar Pradesh (“I want to see the day when bed sheet used in Barack Obama’s house will have Made in Uttar Pradesh mark,” Rahul Gandhi said in a rally in Ghaziabad during UP assembly elections) to aloo ki factory and aloo se sona, Gandhi displays complete insensibility to that corner of the universe to which he apparently belongs. He fails even by Ortega’s definition of  “a learned ignoramus.” The BHEL absurdity is so beautifully captured in this tweet:

                                           

                                            

Rahul Gandhi does not know what he is expected to do. It seems he is much more comfortable in the role of a vigilante, one of those comic-book superheroes, who suddenly appear on a scene, perform their acts, and vanish into thin air. Whenever some responsibility, like leading the election campaign in a state, has been assigned to him, he has inevitably come a cropper. His academic credentials remain shrouded in mystery and controversy. When Manmohan Singh was appointed as the Prime Minister, a series of e-mails was doing the round of the web highlighting his academic qualifications, calling him the highest qualified Prime Minister in the world. It is a different matter that this highly educated and vastly experienced bureaucrat presided over the most brazenly corrupt and inefficient government in the history of independent India. But, at least, he had a resume that could impress leaders of the international community who would find it hard to deny him an audience. On matters relating to the economy, he would be familiar with all the terminology and jargon that passes for high thinking. Rahul Gandhi, I am afraid, would find it hard to explain the difference between fiscal and revenue deficits.

The shrill Indian media continuously barrages and harangues Narendra Modi and the BJP to explain their visions for the future, deriding them on Swachh Bharat, Go-Rakhsha, Digital India, Make in India, and every other scheme that the Government announces for bringing some equity in the lives of the common people. Modi has not given them the free rides that they had become accustomed to with Manmohan Singh. English language TV channels and newspapers are especially virulent in their unveiled hatred for Modi. Some discredited celebrities have found channels for venting their spleen abroad in such papers as Washington Post and New York Times, in a post-Obama era. These newspapers are equally opposed to both Donald Trump and Modi. Every two-bit anchor feels supremely entitled to roar his or her questions at Modi and the BJP, but when it comes to asking a question of Rahul Gandhi they behave like mice in a biologist’s laboratory. And when it comes to having an audience with the Divine Mother herself, like what happened to Aroon Purie at the India Today conclave, they just curl up and die. This tribe of obnoxious and supremely opinionated news anchors has questions of all and sundry, in pompously named programs like “the nation wants to know” or “left, right, and center” but has no questions for Rahul Gandhi. The electronic media today is increasingly adopting the aspirations of the mob. The mob like the TV camera has no historical memory - it considers only what is within its immediate field of vision, not the complicating facts beyond it. The Economist, in a leading article in its 14^th December 2013 publication headlined “Would Modi save India or wreck it?” wanted “an unambiguous public demonstration that he abhors violence and discrimination against Muslims” as “a bare minimum.” “Otherwise,” the author had the audacity to add, “This newspaper will not back him.” Nowhere have I read that Narendra Modi had requested The Economist to endorse him for the Prime Minister’s post at any time.

One does not have to look too far to see how Rahul Gandhi would perform if he were to become the PM of the country. Just look at the state of Uttar Pradesh, where another scion of a political dynasty had been the Chief Minister for full five years before the people sent him packing rather unceremoniously. Both Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav come from almost similarly privileged backgrounds, appear to have similar intellectual capabilities, and have lived lives that require no effort. The British novelist John Fowles, in his book of essays titled “Wormholes” wrote, “A life of entertainment and convenience produces ever-shallower leaders. Nor are such leaders well advised. Such shallow and childlike leaders and advisors would, by the very virtue of their lack of wisdom and experience, eventually commit the kind of ghastly miscalculation that would lead to general catastrophe of some kind.” Countries with young populations are subject to political violence. With Third World populations growing dramatically, and becoming increasingly urbanized, leaders have to become increasingly ingenious in resolving crises that are inevitable due to an ever-increasing demand for basic necessities, jobs and services. They have to have the ability to negotiate with an increasingly complex web of international corporations and markets that are becoming the real arbiters of power in the current world. Jeffrey Sachs, the well-known professor of international trade writes “good government means relative safety from corruption, from breach of contract, from property expropriation, and from bureaucratic inefficiency.” The UPA government, led by the “highest qualified Prime Minister in the World” failed in all the above criteria. What are those “outstanding credentials” that people like Manmohan Singh, Shashi Tharoor, and the rest of the rump that passes for leadership in the Congress party, see in Rahul Gandhi that are, until now, completely hidden from our view? Arthur Koestler writes, “To create innocence, one must have awareness of guilt.” But when the Congress continues to behave without any awareness of guilt, how does it expect to create innocence for its assumed leader?

A captive print and electronic media, a compromised academia, and a plethora of foreign-funded NGO’s that have the mandate to “Break India” along the various fault lines that they think are vulnerable, have taken it upon themselves to prop up this shadow warrior, better expressed as “Kagemusha” by the Japanese, to face the challenge of Narendra Modi and the so-called right wing. I am reminded of Erasmus who had accused the academic mediocracy of “looking in utter darkness for that, which has no existence whatsoever.”

Arthur Koestler, in a paper titled “The Poverty of Psychology” published in 1961, wrote, “The rearguard is still firmly entrenched in university chairs, the editorial offices of technical papers, and other positions of power. In the period of scholastic decline, the orthodox Aristotelians had occupied similar key positions…. ‘They are Folly’s servants,’ declared Erasmus, denouncing the sterile pedantry and grotesque academic jargon of his time.” One wonders how he would react today to the definition of the mediocracy that has taken over most of the “free” academic world.

Robert D. Kaplan”s succinct statement that “avoiding tragedy requires a sense of it, which in turn requires a sense of history” encapsulates the tragedy of the Congress party that has got itself trapped in a time warp where the beginning and the end of everything is contained in the Gandhi surname.

To conclude with another quote from Jose Ortega y Gasset: “An ‘unemployed’ existence is a worse negation of life than death itself.”

Vijaya Dar

August 12, 2018