Herd mentality. Try adding 2+ 2 now.

Last few days, there has been incessant shouting about alleged foreign policy mistakes of the Manmohan team. We tried to make out what all the shouting was about. This is what we found.

Here is a link 1 It concludes “Nonalignment is no ideology. It is an idiosyncrasy.”

Here is link 2 that says Bharat Varma says a chinese attack on India is imminent.

Here is what TOOTBWAHNP's satellite poster says in his post Another Manmohan capitulation.

"Other write ups in this newspaper have the "redoubtable" SM Krishna saying that there's nothing wrong in opening ones kimono WIDE (as in REALLY WIDE) to intrusive american inspections.
If this is how totally Manmohan and Co are selling us down the drain in a deal so simple, imagine how total the sell-out in the nuke deal, once the technical gobbledegook is removed, must be. "

Now, if a Chinese attack is imminent, and if non-aligned stance is useless, and if Amercian weapons could help avert attack, and if America won't sell weapons unless an end-use inspection agreement is signed, where is the capitulation? is 2+ 2 = 5?

Or is it that you will oppose Congress even when it is clearly doing the best to forward Indian interests?

We will be glad to show the mistakes of the shouting brigade if there is more interest in it. Let us know.

Advani and his blog

How do you know whether a leader means what he says? Just look at his actions over a period of time and you can draw your own conclusions. Advani has been talking about Hindus and India at the top of his voice for last 20 years. Many believe him. Many think he is inspirational and so on and so forth. Many others strongly believe that it is only a gimmick for grabbing attention and votes.

A few weeks before the recent elections Advani started a blog. We checked the last post on that blog recently. The date was 22nd April. It is about three months from that date and Advani hasn't felt a need to connect with his web audience. Some leader, he is. . He can fool some people all the times. Let us salute him.

Taking stock

About 30 months ago, Rajeev adopted the policy of deleting our comments outright. We started the rajeev-2006-critique blog to counter the censorship. Within weeks our blog brought about some desirable changes. Post the critique blog, Rajeev's blog has fewer obscene posts about women, much less bashing of Hindu icons, and much greater focus. At one point in time, we thought that the critique blog was being counterproductive, so we closed the blog.

We reopened the critique blog as rajeev-2008-critique simply because the policy of summary deletions continued and nobody objected to it. As expected the shoot-the-messenger type of censorship that Rajeev adopts has resulted in the blog post often going comment-less. People have realised it is futile to post comments that have a different perspective and have abstained from posting. Thankfully, the virulent original posts have also reduced.

Earlier this year, there were new entrants to the blogosphere. Both Kanchan Gupta and Swapan Dasgupta started their own blogs with an open comments policy. The debate is much more lively and inclusive. There is now a better platform for any debate about BJP. Rajeev's blog is irrelevant from that angle.

It is still important to promote democracy on Rajeev's blog. I cannot do it alone. I will wait for someone else to take this up. We will be looking for a suitable opportunity for that. Let us hope Rajeev's blog does not suffer the fate Advani is suffering. Advani squashed intra-party opposition with a heavy hand. He lost the elections and he is likely to lose his status forever. He never delivered any results for Hindus or India but bloggers like Rajeev never allowed anyone to publish such views. Public has learnt the truth too late.

In the meantime, BJP is realising it cannot combine Marxism, Hinduttva, and personal ambitions of the members of the geriatric club and their sidekicks in one single offering to India. Let us hope that the vigorous debate generated by election results strengthens both Congress and BJP, and India in the process.

Election results and quotable quotes.

Elections are over. BJP supporters are busy venting out against the leaders that were so dear to them a few days back.

The BJP has conceded defeat. We are really missing Atalji's presence in the elections and campaign," BJP leader Sushma Swaraj said.

We would like to remind you what Rajeev Srinivasan said some time back about the Indian cricket team.

There are only two ways the indian team can accomplish progress:
1. the team plays well. but this is impossible, given that the team is chosen not for competence, but to satisfy various satraps. it wont work unless there are disincentives and incentives. for instance, i liked the disincentive for the losing pakistani coach -- he was mudered. the indian team bozos should be given similar disincentives. you lose matches, you lose body parts. that would solve the problem pronto, and these guys will be out there applying themselves fielding and batting and bowling like their lives depended on it (which in fact they would).

Does that apply to BJP? Also, shouldn't the Hindu Nationalist blog take some blame for not being able to convince 1/3 people that they tried to convince? Maybe Rajeev should take a 3-month holiday from blogging and rethink his 'strategy'.

The PM takes the wind out of Advani's sail

A few days ago, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh delivered a knockout punch to Mr. Advani's position. Strength or weakness of a person should not be judged by words, he said. A person might use strong words but might be weak in action. The PM hinted that such a person must be considered a weak person.

Consider Mr. Advani's record. A terrorist attack on parliament. An abject surrender to militants in the plane hijack case. Finally, no containment of Maoist menace and no concrete action against conversion menace or Bangladheshi influx.. That, in short, is the sum and substance of Mr. Advani's achievements as a home minister. Such a person cannot be branded as a strong person by any measure.

Look at how Mr. Advani faces media. When he talks to Padmashree Barkha Dutt, he goes soft and starts talking in terms of emotional words and hurt. A total sell out to a channel that I feel is aggresively anti-hindu. Do all BJP supporters like it? Do RSS people like it? Do they like to see one of their top leaders surrender emotionally to Padmashree Barkha Dutt? Well, well. Nobody (Rajeev - the head of the BJP censor team - has not complained) has complained yet so we assume they approve of all this.

But the PM has won this round hands down. Will the BJP think of having a different leader? A young one? One who has studied Bhagvad geeta , one who could make a clear demarcation between those who are on the side of the good, and those who are not (Kauravas), and one who will deal firmly, not emotionally with those who are against common people of India?

What they hide

Media houses should be known more by what they hide than what they publish. They get paid on the basis of time and eyeballs. They try to get more eyeballs. They keep the item on display till eyeballs thin out. Some augment their income to a varying degree by charging for providing publicity to those who are seeking it (politicians, aspiring artists and so on). Most rarely tell you whether a program is paid for by any party. Some also make a good amount of money by NOT PUBLISHING things some parties don't want people to know. Some individuals associated with media take this idea further. They get money by locating information that a party might not like to be published, and then charge the party for not publishing it! That has to be a very lucrative business.

Now, scan the Indian media sites for G20 news. How many are discussing the secret tax havens? Is anyone making money by keeping the item folded?

Just in case this gets you thinking that mediamen are bad and that Indian mediamen are worst, let me add that they are party-neutral in this matter. Just as Congress would not like some things publicised, BJP must also be working towards hiding some facts from the public eye. It is easy to guess what each party tries to hide if you stop to think about it. For example, the owner of the blog with a Hindu Nationalist perspective censors most comments that really try to expose the fact that BJP merely talks about Hindus, it rarely does anything for Hindus . TOOTBHAWNP is an expert in editing. It is a good example how power corrupts, and how Indian followers rarely question someone who has power. So, don't blame the mediamen. The buck stops at us. Till we don't force fair and just editing, and transparent media accounting, we will never have a fair and just society.

The PUB owner wants to grow.

The owner of the blog with a Hindu Nationalist Perspective has now declared his intention to grow.

He wants more hits. There are new guys commenting on the post. Old guys do not seem to have much opinion about this. It seems that not all can be fooled all the times. New posters will of course get fooled for a few weeks before they come to know about the vicious truth of the pub culture.

In one of the responses, the TOOTBWAHNP writes "in effect maald this is what we have now. only the abusive posts are deleted." Thus far, the J L Nehru of the blogworld was writing truthfully, mostly about his feelings about many situations, many of them masquerading as theories. Now, he has taken recourse to falsehood.

"Only the abusive posts are deleted?" Are you sure Mr. Rajeev? We can pull out dozens of posts that were deleted and ask users whether they were abusive. We will do so with one post every week.

The truth is, a liquor bar cannot grow organically. If you wish to grow, keep the pub separate from the discussion forum. Civilised people will not care to join the pub, but they would happily participate in a truly free and independent forum.