big rant

The new blogger dashboard is seriously bugging me now. I just can't save anything on Internet Explorer anymore. Most who read this will ask why I am using the Internet Explorer in the first place. That's a good question, and I want to spend no further time on it than to explain that my hands are technologically tied in a lot of ways.

Moving on, no matter how I look at the world, it always comes back to how quickly this country is descending into economic chaos. It feels like an absolute massacre out there, with the media howling at how bad the stock markets are, the prices are, inflation is, INR is at an all time low, the blue chip stocks are doing wonderfully bad, there is absolute lack of policy and direction, and thanks to the pork-barreled policies of the worst government this country have ever voted in, its fiscal deficit is inching upwards.

All in all, thank you Sonia Gandhi. Thank you Rahul Gandhi. Thank you Sharad Pawar, thank you all shameless creatures. Mr. Pawar, this must be particularly exciting time for you, considering your political astuteness has kept your name away from any of the scams that have surfaced in the past few years, and yet there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that you, and your cronie Praful Patel, have already made your billions. A job well done.

As for the fraud Gandhi family, well, as R. Jagannathan said a few days ago in Firstpost.com, the preparation to put Raul Maino as the Prime Minister of the Republic of India had begun in 2009 already. May 21 was the third anniversary of the dark day in Indian shamocracy when the people fell for the charm and name of the Gandhi family and as the country reaped the benefits of the economic decisions taken during Vajpayee ji's government, and UPA I not being able to unleash its socialist and self-serving agenda thanks to the Left.

To understand this, we need to go back to 2009, when the Congress party was celebrating its huge victory. The party increased its Lok Sabha seat-count to 206 – the highest tally by a national party since 1991 – barely 65-70 seats short of an absolute majority on its own. That’s where voodoo politics began in right earnest.

The 2009 results confirmed two things to the Congress party: that heavy social spending is the way to install Rahul Gandhi in power in 2014; and that the country may soon be ready to give one party complete control of government. What started as a brief dalliance with aam aadmi politics in 2004 (which the Congress unexpectedly won) gathered more steam after 2009.

What remained unchanged after UPA-1 was the belief that the Sonia-Manmohan division of power – where the former influences all major political-economic decisions and the latter keeps a semblance of administration going without doing much – was good enough to ensure a Rahul Gandhi victory in 2014.

In short, far from seeing 2009 as a mandate to govern, Sonia Gandhi and Rahul saw 2009 as an incentive to start planning for 2014. Stated differently, the political efforts for winning 2014 began as early as 2009. This was how UPA-2 squandered its mandate.

This was also why Rahul Gandhi kept playing compulsive populist at regular intervals – turning up suddenly among Orissa’s tribals to claim he was their soldier in Delhi in August 2010, announcing a Muslim quota before the UP elections. Lessons from the Bihar elections, where the party was trounced by Nitish Kumar and the BJP  in 2010, were ignored as aberrations.

All this is a few days old. Since then, quite a few political happenings have occurred, and the media is making a very big deal of Narendra Modi attending the BJP national summit in Mumbai. This was after the Nitin Gadkari loyalist, and apparent Modi opposer, Sanjay Joshi was removed from his party posts. So it seems that the BJP is finally trying to work something out in preparation for 2014. As discussed already, the CONgress already has its dirty plan in place, the effects of which we already started seeing a while ago, so its high time the BJP national leaders actually got together and realized that this is a great opportunity they are squandering, because the CONgress has brought this nation down to its knees, and the BJP must realize the responsibility on their shoulders as the only other national party.

It is their limbo that has allowed the third front to come up again and JJ and Mamata are making so many noises. I used to think JJ is a good administrator, maybe she is, but I hate to see her turn into yet another Tamil politician who wins votes through open bribery of voters, using public money.

Coming back to the BJP, the national headlines are now revolving around the entry of Narendra Modi on the national stage. A friend of mine said that if Modi comes, no Muslim will vote for the BJP, and I told him that the Muslims already didn't vote for the BJP, but what they will appreciate is that whatever the tag Modi carries since Godhra, there is no doubt in anybody's mind that Gujarat under him has become India's most prosperous state and this country could really, really use an administrator of his caliber who can actually get things done.

Modi also has lined up support from BS Yeddyurappa, who again was sulking against the BJP national leadership till recently. Thats good. In a way its good that the BJP, and the NDA, have good state level leaders. Most of the BJP led states are perceived to be doing better than the CONgress led states in administration and economy, with Gujarat being the poster boy of economic progress.

There are rumblings that the BJP national leadership, led by Advani, Arun Jaitly, Sushma Swaraj and Nitin Gadkari is really out of touch with a lot of things, and really do not seem to be trying to put the NDA house in order. I agree with that statement. What's scary is that these four leaders do not seem to be generating any national followership at all. The thing about Modi is that it may alienate a lot of Indians, but at the same time, it will get a lot of Indians to vote for who their safety and economic well being is important and who see Modi as the only administrator who can get this country in this downward spiral to come back up again.

And where are all these people? Yashwant Sinha, Jaswant Singh, Murali Manohar Joshi? Other than running into Yashwant Sinha a few weeks ago at the Palladium mall in Mumbai, I really haven't seen him anywhere. What about Arun Shourie? Surely Mr. Shourie's sensibilities find resonance with so many straight thinking forward looking urban Indians?

The economy well, it needs a major major push up after the way it has been handled the past few years. Politics and economics can't be separated, as some commentators said Sonia Gandhi believed, and I really hope she and her family face justice, and so do her coterie and other spineless Congress leaders who stand around without taking a stand.

So another weekend is here and as I figure out how to spend it nicely, I do hope things improve for me, my stocks, and my salary, for everyone else in this increasingly God forsaken country.

hajjjj

The ease with which I am slipping into a state of not writing is alarming me now. Only last week, I had written a great rant on Rahul Gandhi's visit to Maharashtra and as I was about to publish it, Blogger's new and amazing interface ensured that it didn't auto save it and I lost it all. Needless to say, I was thoroughly pissed off.

Even now, as I write this, Blogger tells me that it won’t be able to save what I am typing and that I should note down an error code and mention it to them to help them rectify the errors. So here I am writing this on a Word document offline, to be copied and pasted into my blog later.

Mmmph, so much for technology. Sometimes I wonder why can’t writing be as simple as taking a paper and a pencil and sitting down and spending a few minutes or hours just writing anymore. Why are there so many different types of blogs, kindles, technology interfaces and what not, and all to make writing and reading a better experience! Its all humbug. The best reading experience is taking a musty old book and sitting comfortably and just reading – with no television in front of you, of course.

Its been over a week since then, and my propensity to understand and read into national politics seems to be declining. As usual, there are many things going on, including Mamata Ban Her ji! And her soirees with the Government of the Banana Republic of India, and her great meetings with Hillary Clinton, who did well to massage the ego and sooth the insecurities of this crazy woman.

A big news today was the Supreme Court telling the government to do away with Hajj subsidies in ten years. The first opinion by R. Jagannathan from Firstpost.com is that it’s a good step, but a small trickling step.

Ending of Hajj subsidies is a case in point presented by all seculars, (no, not the frauds sitting in CONgress, NCP, RJD, BSP, or wherever) that if India is a truly secular country, then no religion should be provided preference over any other. Of course, thinking like a neta does, then the correct answer for this would be to start providing subsidies to other religions! Hindu’s to Kailash Mansarovar and Christians to Jerusalem.

Mr. Jagannathan only repeats the obvious. No government or politician wants to be seen as anti-minority. In India, minority means Muslims and Muslims only. So as always, the Supreme Court has to do to the dirty work and the Government can take umbrage in the fact that they are not doing it on their own accord but only because the Court has asked them to.

Mr. Jagannathan makes a very valid point, about quoting from religious scriptures to uphold law, which, by the way, is not based on the scriptures, but on the laws of modern India.

Another bad idea is the habit of quoting from scripture to uphold Indian law. A decision on the Haj subsidy should be based on the Indian constitution, not interpretations of the Koran or the Hadith.

So when a court quotes the Koran to justify its decision to end the subsidy, it is creating a bad precedent. The Koran is said to proclaim the following: “And Haj (pilgrimage to Makkah) to the House (Ka’bah) is a duty that mankind owes to Allah, those who can afford the expenses (for one’s conveyance, provision and residence).”

One is glad to hear that the Koran is against the Indian government’s Haj subsidy, but what if the Koran had held otherwise? Would we then always have the subsidy?

The courts have to abandon the idea of quoting from holy books and religious tradition while upholding Indian law. Sometimes these laws may support what the constitution says; at other times they may not.

By quoting from scripture, the courts are laying minefields in the path of upholding the constitution – which is their only job.

In fact, it is the Koran which Jihadis use to justify killing non-Muslims, or even Muslims of other sects! But then religious bigotry is a curse of modern society. We use whatever we have to from whatever scripture to do or justify whatever we want. So let me leave it at that.

According to the Indian Express, the Court makes a point that instead of spending so much money on Hajj, use the money saved on uplifting the Muslim community. While this is a noble thought, I think the few hundreds of crores saved and earmarked for the community will only end up in the pockets of a lot of politicians and well-wishers of the Muslim community.

Its not just true for any one community but stands true for the entire nation that we, as a country, are more than capable of taking care of ourselves. The bogey that Indian investments in defense, for example, or subsidies, take away a lot of money from other places, has been shown to be not as debilitating as is made out to be. A higher percentage of the GDP is spent on funding the social sector, and a very high percentage of this money is stolen and siphoned off from the top to the bottom of the pipeline. This has been happening since the country gained independence and that is the reason that despite budgets of hundreds of thousands of crore, we are still the same backward mass as we were before, now only more hypocritical and materialistic.

While it is important that the Courts be completely religion-neutral, at the same time I feel that being afraid to state the obvious is also not right. Whenever a decision that has to be taken that is right, but many rabid members of a community with vested interests might not agree with, a lot of time and effort is spent in appeasing them with nice words, and extolling the virtue of the decision and the necessity of the decision.

Till now, the Haj was open to all Muslims once every five years. Before the SC ruling, the Government had said in April that they would change that to once in a lifetime. Also, the priority will be given to people over 70 years and those that have been rejected before.

In fact, CON man Salman Khurshid, I mean Congress minister Mr. Khurshid said at once that the Government was working in the same direction for many years now! Oh happy thought that the government and the Supreme Court think so much alike in the affairs of the nation! I think it has been pointed out by many people and at many occasions that India is the only country in the world that provides subsidies to its citizens for Haj travel!

According to various news reports, a lot of people have welcomed the Supreme Court directive. Tabloid of India quotes some gentlemen from Chennai who happen to be Muslim that it will remove suspicions of favoritism, and that the subsidies were given in a very opaque manner. So in a way it will kill one avenue of corruption (among the millions of others, but that’s another story). A minor blip in the Supreme Court order is that it has asked the Government to cut down its goodwill delegations it sends to Saudi every year. This alone reeks of favors and sifarish. In fact, the Supreme Court does call it the VIP quota, which is what it had become.

* Goodwill Haj delegation – The primary purpose of sending the goodwill delegation, according to the government is “to convey goodwill on the auspicious occasion of Haj to the government of Saudi Arabia as well as to the Indian pilgrims”.

The delegation interacts with the Haj pilgrims from India, understands their issues and takes up the same with the Saudi Arabian authorities.

India first sent a goodwill delegation in 1967 with three members. Till 1987, the number of its members remained under 10. Thereafter, the size of the delegation started steadily increasing and in 1997 it had 31 members.

In 2005, there were 36 members in the delegation, in 2010 there were 30 and in 2011 its strength marginally shrunk to 27.

The court noted that the government’s affidavit did not disclose any criteria or guidelines on the basis of which people were selected for being included in the goodwill delegation.

“On the basis of the material brought to our notice, we have no doubt that the way people are nominated as members of the goodwill delegation is in complete violation of Article 14 of the constitution.”

The problem is that religion and politics are so deeply entwined with each other that it is just impossible to for the former to not creep into state policies, and in a democracy like India, religion (s) of the minority becomes an even more important factor considering the belief that it votes en bloc. So routinely you will hear news of flare-ups between communities which quickly take on a political turn with local party ‘leaders’ taking over and directing the emotions of the masses. That’s a pitiable state for our society to be in.