Muthalik, Dadri, Rohith....wash, rinse, repeat!

It was 'Deja vu all over again'

In the run up to the 2009 elections an NDTV crew lounging at a pub in Bengaluru in the afternoon hours found itself fortuitously in the middle of a ratings bonanza.

It was their favorite villain the Hindutva warrior beating up some youngsters  over drinking and enjoying themselves.

As was to be expected the story was run on a loop, 24 x7 till the accepted version was etched into the minds of the viewers "Hindutva = regressive, draconian social order.

As always, BJP and in particular their PM Candidate LKA were late to react to the ruckus.  A befuddled BJP stumbled over themselves, not sure if the main accused 'Muthalik' was one of them.

Was Muthalik a part of the larger Sangh parivar?  Would criticizing Muthalik put them in RSS' bad books?

As the paralysis dragged on, supporters of BJP such as yours truly watched in rage as it became increasingly evident that the entire episode had been stage managed to malign the BJP and the broader Sangh parivar.

It was designed to alienate the youth and women's vote.  And to a certain extent it work.

A second objective was to prevent a deep and wide discussion on the performance of UPA 1.  Both objectives were achieved as the airwaves were saturated with cries of 'Ram Sene' and 'Muthalik'.

As every attack on PM Modi has backfired the Pseudo Secular Industrial complex has resorted to this tried and tested strategy - first at Dadri and now with Rohith.

Once again the truth has been obfuscated and an attempt has been made to paint BJP as a regressive anti-social party.

As with any political strategy it has entered a phase of diminishing returns.  But it would be dangerous to think that these contrived controversies wont have a lasting effect on the BJP.

Much as muslims were alienated prior to the Bihar elections using Dadri, Rohith could be used in other locations - Bihar and UP.

One key difference is that media has lost all credibility.  A pre-Radia NDTV was able to hurt BJP in 2009.  That is unlikely to happen now.

But we must be on the guard to ensure that whenever such a story is peddled by the media, the counter attack on social media must be swift and overpowering.

Most importantly BJP must create a standard response template of its own when events such as Malda or Pune burning of a Hindu teen happen and media chooses to ignore them.

From Tuktuki in Bengal to Rathod in Pune, BJP and the Sangh has been woefully weak and lethargic in its response.  It was their social media supporters who forced them into sending a delegation to take up this issue.

Most importantly the response came weeks after the event when the fires had died down.  Instead BJP needs to develop an rapid response team which can attack the media on these issues so that the plight of Hindus is highlighted and puts pseudo seculars on the backfoot.

This one strategy will help even the political battleground.

It is a necessary condition to defeat Congress-AAP's evil designs - but will it be sufficient.

PM Modi - From David to Golaith

A little examined and understood dynamic behind the rise and eventual triumph of PM Modi was the public perception he fostered of a one-man-army against the forces hell bent on destroying India and Hindus.

In his quest to rise above retail politics and appear Prime Ministerial he may have relinquished this hard earned and well deserved reputation of being the Hindu David against a secular, corrupt Goliath.

As I have suggested in a few previous posts (see 'PM's Dilemma') this was a natural progression given the complex set of constraints under which the PM has had to operate from the outset. 

This is not to suggest that he has forfeited this great political asset for good.  But if things are allowed to drift his foes could dilute this asset if not permanently reverse it.

Before we explore avenues of recovering some of this lost ground, let us first examine why it was diluted to begin with.

Explaining the ostrich like quality of European liberals and liberal political leadership Ayaan Hirsi Ali once furnished an insightful theory:  Only those Europeans who have to live with Muslims on a day-to-day basis can understand the anguish of having to curtail one's god given freedoms.

Almost every urban center across India is facing a not so silent Islamic demographic invasion.  In areas where Muslims have traditionally faced little to no resistance, Hindus are being marginalized and rendered as refugees in their own land.

Kashmir is being repeated across India.  Hindu women are being raped, Hindu men beaten up and subjected to threats to life and property at the drop of a hat.  Even traditional Hindutva strongholds like Maharashtra are no longer immune to this rising evil.

Moreover, a clearly compromised media has become an enabler of this silent Jihad.  When Hindus are victims as in Malda or Pune, media completely ignores the incident and buries it.  When Hindus retaliate media and their secular handlers effortlessly turn the knives on Hindus and paint the entire country as 'communal', 'fascist'.

The core BJP voter had hoped that the election of PM Modi to the highest office would help address these issues.  At the very least a Hindu govt. would give Hindus a fighting chance in their own land.

But not much seems to have changed on the ground.  Coupled with high prices, continuing urban decay, entrenched 'retail' corruption and govt. apathy, even the core BJP supporter is finding it hard to buy into the promise with which PM Modi was elected into office.

To be fair, we have only just completed 20 months of his govt.   A wide range of path breaking initiatives have been set into motion.  From Jan Dhan and Mudra Bank to Agri insurance, these initiatives are bound to usher India into a decades long hyper growth trajectory and lift hundreds of millions of Indians out of poverty.

The fear expressed by a number of PM's core supporters is that these benefits may not be visible in time to positively influence the outcome of the next LS elections.

As I have pointed out since before the PM took office that he has 36 months to deliver on key promises.  Now the fear is that this may not happen and 2019 would be lost before the war is fought.

This fear may yet be premature.  PM's initiatives have begun to show up in GDP projections.  Most importantly a global meltdown in commodities will serve as a tremendous boost to India's manufacturing sector.

But the twin variables of time and a rapidly uniting opposition could hurt the PM in a big way.

So how can the PM remedy this situation. 

Delivering on the Hindutva agenda:

A Putin or a Trump can give the world a finger but even these leaders of very powerful nations cannot go completely off the reservation and speak the language of an Yogi Adityanath or a Balasaheb Thackeray.

India is still heavily dependent on foreign nations for a vast variety of key inputs from nuclear fuel to modern weapons.  

PM Modi can ill afford to anger Western nations with a hard edged Hindutva agenda.  Most importantly an electorally significant number of non-Hindus voted for him and he must occupy the centrist space to prevent a anti-BJP Christlamist consolidation.  

Given these constraints how can the PM deliver on his Hindutva agenda.  

Enter Dr. Swamy.

Clearly these two Hindu warriors have agreed to a Good-Cop-Bad-Cop division of labor.  PM Modi plays the Good cop and delivers on his development agenda while the Bad Cop Dr.  Swamy goes after all the core (albeit controversial) elements of BJP's agenda.

While this is working well it may not be enough.  A much larger, broad based effort needs to be instituted.

As suggested in this post - http://inflextionpoint.blogspot.com/2016/01/how-to-take-back-kashmir.html

BJP needs to develop a non-Sangh Parivar Hindutva outfit which can carry out the Hindutva agenda through legal and constitutional means.  

For instance, such an organization could lead an effort to reclaim temples destroyed and desecrated in Kashmir over the past 30 odd years.  

Such an initiative galvanizes all the Hindutva forces.  It focuses on a positive agenda and reemphasizes the rising tide of Islamic extremism spreading across the world. 

It simultaneously neutralizes pseudo secular forces as any opposition to such an initiative will quickly unmask them and force them to take sides making them combatants in a politico-cultural war. 

By keeping this project within a constitutional and legal framework, BJP can prove to its core supporters that it is striving to achieve a concrete objective i.e. the eventual return of Kashmiri Hindus to their homes.

Most importantly by taking a proactive approach, it pushes BJP out of the reactive mode in which it currently finds itself.

Hope the PM and his party are listening.

How To Take Back Kashmir

Every year Kashmiri Pandits take over a small corner of Delhi to express their anguish and silent rage over the genocide that turned them into refugees in their own land.  Non-KPs use KPs as a stick to beat pseudo secular media and politicians with.  

Very little happens beyond these annual slug fests.  KPs and Hindus go back to curling up in a fetal position as they watch that smug smirk return to the faces of their tormentors.

But some (or a large part) of the blame for their conditions rests with KPs and Hindus themselves.  This is not an attempt to blame the victim.  In all these years of sharing the anguish of our Kashmiri brothers not once have I seen a concrete proposal presented beyond the usual "What is the government doing to get us back to Kashmir"?

What follows are a few practical suggestions that may help kick start a conversation and perhaps get KPs thinking on a different strategy.

1. Stop calling yourself Kashmiri Pandits and start calling yourself Hindus

Let's face it, if you restrict your identity to a region and a caste, the perpetually navel gazing non-Kashmiri Hindu is unlikely to feel a sense of compassion for your state in life.  If on the other hand you present yourselves as the first Hindu victims of a demographic Islamic Jihad that is coming to every neighborhood across India, KPs are likely to attract a much wider more support.

2. Recapture Temples in Kashmir

Every war needs a beachhead.  A Normandy.  Hindus have been pushed into a war and this is Kashmir's Normandy.  

Any drive to reestablish Hindu Temples by repairing and rejuvenating them is bound to attract a vicious attack from pseudo seculars and their Jihadi handlers.  And that is precisely the response we should hope for.

This strategy corners enemies of India into a no-win situation.  If they dont oppose it, KPs establish a toehold in their homeland.  If they do, Hindus can raise a Ram Janmahomi (RJB) style crusade to galvanize Hindus from across India.

This campaign will need government support.  But because it entails Hindus taking back what is theirs to begin with, there can be no legal, ethical or moral argument against it.

Both central and state govts will need to offer logistical support for this effort.

3. Recalibrate Return of KPs into a larger campaign

The Return of KPs should stop being merely about the return of KPs.  It should be about Hindu asmita, about the survival of Hindus as a community, about basic, fundamental human rights.

As long as Kashmiri Pandits make this only about themselves, they will be stymied by an apathetic Hindu ummah.

4. Insinuate the Ethnic Cleansing of KPs into the national discourse on Secularism

Launch a nationwide campaign to educate every Hindu spokesperson to make this wretched chapter in Indian history as the focal point of any discussion on secularism. 

They utter 'Dadri' every Hindu spokesperson should respond with 'but what about Kashmiri Hindus'.

'Godhra' - same response

'Kamlesh Tiwari' - same response

Ethnic Cleansing of KPs should become the war cry to corner and shame every sickular.  The plight of our Kashmiri brothers should be ingrained into the psyche of every man, woman and child across India so that we dont forget and more importantly raise future generations to become aware of the fatal danger posed to India by unbridled Islam.

Hopefully this will soften the opposition to their return to Kashmir and allow us to gain a toehold in Kashmir.

These suggestions wont ensure the return of Hindus to Kashmir.  But they are a starting point.  They are a concrete strategy beyond the annual spectacle of complaining and wailing over a horrific crime against humanity and forgetting once the cameras are turned off.

Tackling Pakistan - Part 1: Understanding the mindset

The single biggest question confronting the world vis-a-vis Pakistan in particular and Islam in general is this:

How do you defeat an enemy who does not share the same set of values and ideals as any rational human being would.

Even the most uneducated and underprivileged societies share the same basic goals:  A better life.  A life filled with dignity, prosperity and a better future for their children and grand children.

Most muslims share this goal as well.  But only upto a point.  If asked to chose between material wealth, a better quality of life and Islam, even the most educated of Muslims will chose the latter.  Some may do so out of fear of social ostracism but a vast majority will chose Islam above all else.  Even the safety and future of their children.

Survey after survey conducted across Islamic societies reveal this ugly truth.  Ofcourse the anecdotal overwhelmingly supports this theory.  For Muslims Islam trumps all.

This unflinching love for a primitive, tribal doctrine breeds a value system which is at odds with a post-religion, rapidly unifying 21st century Global village.  A core tenet of this emerging global village is tolerance and acceptance of contrasting belief systems.

Even educated and prominent Muslim journalists such as Medhi Hasan believe that non-Muslims are animals and inferior to practicing Muslims.

Perhaps Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu put it best "Nazis believed in the Master Race, these Muslims believe in the Master Faith".

To put it mildly, this is a head case where hundreds of millions of rabidly religious people not only crave a 7th century existence but want to drag the rest of the non-muslim world back with them - kicking and screaming, dead or alive.

One could argue these being doctrinal differences should have little to no impact on India's dealings with a professional Paki Army.

But dig deeper into the Paki mindset and some startling truths become obvious.  The Pakistani doesnt care if his nation prospers or even survives as a unified entity.  Their raison d'etre is the decimation of India.  

The average Paki is bitter every time India is celebrated from sports to bollywood to software.  Much as the average Muslim hates America and resents the prosperity achieved by the West.

The thought that most haunts Muslims is this "How can these infidels with their bikini clad women and their monkey gods be smarter and more prosperous than us - the true believers".

Every day that the infidel prospers is a middle finger to the religion of peace.  His very existence is an affront to Islam and its sociopolitical belief system.

It is this mindset that drives Pakistan's India policy and unless we address this mindset we can never defeat Pakistan.

It is this mindset that makes Muslims view concessions less as a peace offering and more as a incremental surrender.  One step closer to Darul-Islam.

Along with this love for all things Islamic, lies another dangerous misconception.  That no matter the odds Islam will prevail.  That Islam is unstoppable and one day mother Earth will have the rule of Islam.

I have spoken to highly educated Muslims, raised in liberal non-Islamic societies who share this belief.

There's some basis to this belief in Islam's inevitable triumph. Demographic change will have Islam as the largest religion by 2050.  If current growth trajectory continues vasts parts of the world will have sizable muslim constituencies.  At the 25% mark, Islams begins to exert itself in most societies.  Kerala being a great example of this phenomenon.  Even the draconian measures adopted by China in XinJiang have failed to arrest the rise of Islamism.

The twin evils of an uncompromising belief in an outdated sociopolitical religion and belief in its eventual triumph lie at the heart of the crisis of Islamism facing the world today.

In Part 2 we will examine the options available to India given the staggering constraints left at our doorstep by historic mistakes and miscalculations.