Fault in our genes

Every time I pass by the multiple metro construction sites in Bangalore – I ask myself in genuine contemplation, why are we like this? By ‘we’ I mean all Indians – why are we the way we are? Slow, sloppy, lethargic, disorganized – that’s not a loaded description or the one filled with prejudice or typecast. I will refresh your memory and try to paint a picture for you – remember ‘Mahamana Express’, the brand new train which was supposed to herald the fast and clean trains in India? If not, just google it and see for yourself the pathetic state at which it was left after being in operation for just a few days of time. As some people pointed out in frustration (the feeling which I share) – we Indians don’t deserve good things. We don’t know how to keep the good things we have. As I write these lines, I read a new report where Indians screw the cruise experience for all in Australia. Also, we are one of the worst behaved tourists in the world.

When we try to contrast this behavior with say the Japanese (perhaps the highest benchmark in the world), the observation is very sad. When I was growing up as a kid and also as an adult, I always looked down on the people who have migrated to other nations – permanently or for a long time. Now with the passage of time, I have come to realize there’s nothing wrong with what they have done. They can get better deals, leverage their talent better elsewhere than in India. Not in their lifetime, nor for several more generations are we able to match the living standards of Western Europe or for that matter North America. Maybe that of course, I concur not all are perfect anywhere. But your talent is valued more, you are valued more outside than inside India. Those mavericks who have taken up a fight against the system – to correct it and improve it – are also up against slumbering and compliant masses who are so accustomed to the life here, who don’t aspire for the betterment.

I understand – contrasting India with Western Europe maybe is too much. But let’s consider what now called ‘Asian Tigers’ – countries like Singapore, Korea, Taiwan, etc. They were nothing some 6-7 decades ago. But if you look at them now, they have the same coveted living standards of the west. Their relatively small size is the excuse we give for ourselves – but when we think of China, that argument falls flat. There are so many countries that could inspire us. But we refuse to be inspired.

There are two extreme views on the same subject – one that says that India had a glorious past once and the other which says we are good-for-nothing people and whatever we have/are bequeathed to us by our conquerors. I think we need to tread a middle path where – we may have been great at some point in time. But we have lost track or whatever that was a long time ago and a large portion of the population is deracinated – indeed there is hope, intent, effort but the sheer scale of people we are – the efforts seem lackadaisical.

Yes, India doesn’t represent and has largely moved away from the imagery of Slumdog Millionaire – the typical ‘cow, caste, curry’ as Rajiv Malhotra calls it. Yet, a lot to be done and a lot to be desired. But we have progressed, but not enough. If not for Indians, if anyone else were there in their place there could easily have been a revolution in India – we are too docile to think and act in those lines; politicians and other ringleaders should be thanking their stars for that. We definitely lacked inspired leadership – but inspired leader comes from an inspired populace. I've talked about the same in one of my earlier posts.

I understand we have too many problems, more problems than any other country could fathom – population, diversity, innumerable opinions, fatalistic attitude, lack of ownership, leadership…I can go on – but if we really had an inspired people, each one of these could be addressed. But alas, we don’t have it.

Illiberal ignominy

All it took was one tweet – for his employer to sack a man from his star job, to lose his reputation, to fall into the abyss of (il)liberal ignominy. I’m writing about Atul Kochhar, the celebrity chef based out of the UK. 

Twitter was abuzz with outrage heaping (and rightly so) on Priyanka Chopra for a role in the recent episode of Quantico. The recent episode of the television drama showcased a scene where PC thwarts a plot by “Hindu nationalists” to “frame Pakistanis” ahead of the summit on Kashmir. Stop laughing, now! Notwithstanding the obvious massive holes in the plot, the protagonist foils the plot by finding out ‘rudraksha’ – the sacred chain worn by the “saffron terrorists” – a term conjured by the despicable likes of Chidambaram, Diggy Raja and the clique serving & protecting the Italian queen and her dynasty called UPA. 

Coming back to the episode in the discussion, there couldn’t be anything irreconcilable with reality than this. With 25165464616 terrorist attacks directly indicting the involvement of Muslims in all corners of the world, and zero of Hindus, the makers of the series didn’t think it will a travesty of reality to present this twisted plot. Nevermind! It’s (f)art and pardonable and they have the freedom of expression and all other sundries. But for an Indian actor PC to accept this role doesn’t seem too innocent. It’s not like somebody pushed her to do it. She would obviously be aware of the script and willingly she would have donned the role. 

After backlash in twitter, PC apologized and said she was a ‘Pround Indian’ while she should have actually apologized to Hindus if she has chosen to apologize. This again prompted various reactions. One among them was that of Atul Kochhar’s. 

Let’s see the veracity of the content of Kochhar’s tweet. He was indeed wrong about the number of years he quoted, which he corrected in the subsequent tweet. The attempt of the Islamic invasion of India had started way back in the 7th century; there were initial setbacks but were eventually successful in invading India. This is a part of recorded history - from Alberuni to Firishta, and other Persian & Arabic historians. But since India is a Shariah-compliant country, and whitewashing of Islamic history in India is a state policy, a vast majority of the people are not aware of how bad was the Islamic invasion of India. 

This is another matter and let's keep that aside. How did the fiberals of India react to this? If you can't take a guess, keep this as heuristics - whenever there is a conflict between Islam Vs anything, the fiberals take the former's side. This episode was no different - all in the day's job of the fiberals. One went a step ahead to flagged the tweet to the employer, JW Marriott which severed its ties with him. He was constantly harassed, threatened, and was made to apologize. Finally, he had to delete his twitter account. All these just for a single tweet. Fiberals deliberately tried to destroy the career of a man for just speaking out his mind. These are our self-appointed guardians and purveyors of free speech. 

This episode brought out a well-known fact - the self-proclaimed 'liberals' of India don't give two hoots for the principle of free speech. They stand for a party, religion, tribe etc. per their convenience but never for the principle. If you think they stand for "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it", you are in for a big disappointment. As Joker says in the iconic movie The Dark Knight - "their morals, their code... it's a bad joke. Dropped at the first sign of trouble". The self-same people never stop virtue signaling, shouting from the rooftop that the democracy and "liberal values" are under threat.

Second, if you are too vocal and have gained considerable fame and are politically incorrect in social media, it's good not to advertise your employers. Or even better - be anonymous. Because the first place they want to hurt is your livelihood. 

Lastly - in India like in the contemporary West, actors are accorded a high status in the society and their opinions valued. It's people's stupidity that keeps the actors on a high pedestal in the society. Actors' opinion should be confined to acting allied topics, not beyond that. We have seen how incoherent, uneducated an opinion can be on issues of national importance when you see an Aamir Khan, a Kamal Hasan or the latest a Prakash Raj. Clueless about the lurking realities, yet showing missionary zeal to preach and educate the nation. Nana Patekar summed it up in this short clip. 

In ancient Rome, actors were accorded low societal status and more importantly, Romans gave actors pariah rank in the society because "they are faked by profession" as NN Taleb puts it. Roman emperor Julian prohibited Pagan priests from attending theatre so that actors don't get the elevation in their status in the society because of their presence and attendance. Perhaps the Romans went too far but we have a thing or two learn from Romans.

The curious case of Arun Shourie

"You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain." This is a quote of Harvey Dent in the popular DC comics superhero movie Batman. It describes the questionable nature of heroism through time, the fall from grace of a celebrity or a well-known public figure. I never thought there will come a time when a person like Arun Shourie would fit the description. 

Arun Shourie is a very well known name in Indian intellectual circles for a long time. He has donned various hats - as an economist, a journalist, a public intellectual. In my assessment, he's an intellectual giant in his own right. There are many people like me who have hero-worshipped him for his intellectual clarity and prowess, elephantine memory, assiduousness, depth of thinking and above all the fortitude to take on any opposition single-handedly. 

The so-called "right-wing" in India is hijacked or seems to be hijacked by the RSS types of intellectuals (with all due respect to selfless social work it does). These RSS types don't have ideological clarity or moral courage to carry on their mission. Worse, they don't even know what their mission is. At the drop of the hat, they dabble and babble on fancy ideas like Akhand Bharat, or Hindu Rastra, but they don't have a roadmap or conviction to carry on.

The indefatigable Abhas Chatterjee described RSS thus - It is like a lifeless monster of enormous proportions rather than a throbbing little bee with a sting. By its sheer size, it is huge. But when it comes to achieving its stated goals, RSS scores low. When it 's about developing the intellectual ecosystem, the so-called representative of the Right-wing does next to nothing. Contrast this with the left and how it has captured the Indian intellectual climate. The left has had a grip over intelligentsia much before Indian independence from the British. This has continued after independence to this very day.

The left ideology and its derision for native culture have continued to this day through various branches of its ecosystem - academics, institutions, media and the likes. The leftist ideology has infiltrated everywhere, its torchbearers are ubiquitous under different cloaks which suit different scenarios and situations. There is a huge gulf created thus, where leftists are everywhere and no one to respond or call out their lies. This is where individuals like Arun Shourie stand out. It's individuals like this who have contributed to the almost non-existent right-wing discourse in this country and challenged the leftist hegemony wherever they could. Sita Ram Goel, Ram Swarup, Koenraad Elst are some of the prominent names on top of my head. Arun Shourie belongs to the same league (He's done some outstanding work as a journalist, a minister and an economist which is beyond the scope of this write-up).

My first book of Arun Shourie was Eminent Historians (I've read more than 4 of his books since) - He had dismantled lies brick by brick in an unabashed way. It is a treat to read any of his work where polemics is laced with scholarly brilliance and filled with a large number of citations and anecdotes. Enough of the Shourie I loved. Let's come to his recent statements and press conferences.

Ever since the run-up to the general elections started in 2013, Shourie passively supported Modi and shown his inclination to join the government in whatever capacity he could. But it seems Modi had other plans. After his stupendous win of 2014, Shourie was not offered any positions befitting his stature. Although in many people's opinion, Modi govt. could have utilized a person like Shourie, I personally think Shourie could have been an asset for a ministry like HRD or finance, but that's the way it was. It looks Shourie had nurtured ambitions and Modi's actions might have embittered Shourie.

This bitterness has warranted some of his recent statements - the government is managing headlines, its economic policies are directionless, falsehood is the hallmark of this government etc. Also, he was repeating the bunkum of the opposition which couldn't hold any water like minorities are unsafe in India in the current political dispensation etc. 

Naturally, these positions have endeared him to the "secular" media and politicians (He has already met dangerous and treacherous politicians like Kejriwal and Mamta) He has given interviews to NDTV more than a couple of times. The "seculars" will use him as canon to take a shot at Modi, nothing more than that.

In his most recent statement, he calls opposition to come together & quotes Lenin "to give history a helping hand" to defeat Modi government. O tempora o mores! A lifelong critic of communists and their modus operandi quoting, of all the people Lenin! Per se, there is no harm in objective criticism. But criticism which is engendered by grouse and pettiness is harmful and it is also unbecoming of a towering intellectual like Shourie.