The Paradise Called "Azad Kashmir"

There are many in Jammu Kashmir who still today believe the other side of the LoC i.e. in “Azad Kashmir” controlled by an Islamic Pakistan offers Muslims better life than J&K “controlled” by an ‘Infidel’ India. However, after the establishment of bus links between the two parts of J&K, this notion is fast falling apart.

In J&K, Gurjjars make up the third-largest ethnic group — after Kashmiri-speaking Muslims and Dogra Hindus. Over the years, they have emerged as a significant political entity in J&K, wielding considerable electoral influence in a quarter of the constituencies. Since the early 1990s, the group’s inclusion in the list of Scheduled Tribes has led to a significant improvement in its socio-economic profile, and now it is demanding political reservations as well. The Partition of 1947 saw the division of the Pir Panchal region — the traditional Gurjjar heartland. This led, in turn, to the separation of lakhs of [Muslim] Gurjjar families... Given the close ties that exist between the Gurjjars on both sides of the border, the troubles and fortunes of families and friends across the border have long been a subject of keen interest to the community. With the re-establishment of contact between J&K and Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK) by way of the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad and Poonch-Rawalakot bus links, there was suddenly an opportunity to find out about how relatives across the border were faring. As it turned out, many Gurjjar families in POK were found to be living in difficult conditions, and the community itself was on the verge of losing its identity. As those who came across to J&K from POK put it, the symbols of Gurjjar culture — its folk songs and music, traditions and age-old rituals — which are still visible in J&K, are missing on the other side. The majority of Gurjjars in POK seem to have forgotten the life of dhoks and mergs — the high-alpine meadows to which Gurjjar communities traditionally moved during the summer, and which are such an essential part of the Gurjjar heritage. One of the reasons why Gurjjar traditions were better preserved in J&K was the fact that the community enjoyed special privileges guaranteed under the tribal quota. No such legislation exists in Pakistan. In POK, it is said, nobody dares to speak Gojri in the bazaars and at public functions. In contrast, the J&K Cultural Academy regularly publishes books in Gojri, while NGOs such as Gurjjar Desh Charitable Trust and Gojri Anjumans are also working to preserve the language. There are even local radio programmes in Gojri. In fact, those who do write in Gojri in POK — like Rana Fazal Rajourivi — have to get their books published through the J&K Cultural Academy. ... Abdul Latief, an elderly Gurjjar from Bandi Abasspur in POK, who had come to visit his relatives in the village of Kalai in Poonch, attributed the dilution of his community’s ethnic, cultural and linguistic identity in Pakistan to state-sponsored marginalisation. “Our economic condition is vulnerable,” Latief says. “We are mostly illiterate and work as land-tillers on other people’s farms, or as shepherds.”... If this does not happen, the Gurjjars of POK may soon face extinction in a region that was part of their traditional homeland.[IE]

India’s Next President: Mrs. Pratibha “Notorious” Patil?

It was an idea whose time should have been much earlier in a Parliamentary Democracy’s life. Albeit late in the day, that someone thought of nominating a woman for the largely ceremonial post of India’s President only in the sixtieth year of Independence would nevertheless have been a welcome decision.

But the muck that is being thrown on the UPA presidential candidate on a daily basis and the amount of that sticking to her has definitely crossed the threshold limit. So much so that Mrs. Pratibha Patil has gone from “Mrs. Who” to “Mrs. Notorious” in a matter of days.

Sonia may have silenced the Left with her ‘masterstroke’ of nominating Mrs. Pratibha Patil, a virtual unknown, out of the blue as its nominee for the President’s post but can she silence the public who now demand answers from UPA on the credibility of their Presidential candidate?

In the sixtieth year of Independence, India surely doesn’t need a scam-tainted notorious lady as President. Such a woman can never be a role model to Indian women and definitely hasn't anything to do with women’s empowerment. Out with her!

Damaged Beyond Repair?

Now Tavleen Singh in an article titled "Damage may be beyond repair…" asks BJP the same question the Center Right has been asking them for a long time.

The last thing we need is for the party of Hindu nationalism to join the movement to radicalize Indian Muslims. And, yet this is just what the Bharatiya Janata Party is doing if its campaign in the Uttar Pradesh assembly election is anything to go by. [.....] ....how are we to understand the shamelessly divisive campaign that the BJP has run in U.P. in which Muslims have virtually been accused of being un-Indian because of their religion and culture? A political party that seeks to rule India needs to understand that India's vaunted economic progress will come to an abrupt halt if the majority of our Muslims become radicalized. Once more we will face decades of political disturbance as we did when myopic and dangerous policies caused Punjab and Kashmir to explode. The eighties and the nineties were lost decades for India on account of these two political problems. If radicalization spreads among India's Muslims it will not be contained to two states. Is there nobody in the BJP who understands this? When political problems take a violent turn economic issues invariably get pushed onto a backburner. At this point when the Indian economy is booming and we are looking at the possibility of a growth rate of 10% the last thing we need is for our largest minority group to start feeling that they are alienated from the fruits of this progress. .... ....if radicalization spreads in the Muslim community what we will certainly see is more jehadi terrorism and more support for the international jehad. This is not a Muslim problem, it is a problem for India. It is shocking that the BJP's senior leaders do not realize that what they are doing in U.P. has done as much to radicalize Muslim public opinion as jehadi propaganda has done. Someone needs to remind them that India has the second largest Muslim population in the world and they are here to stay much as Hindu fanatics might like to think they can wish them away.[Cybernoon]

Why Can't BJP Change?

Sudheendra Kulkarni, LK Advani's speechwriter asks BJP why it can't be an all-inclusive party?

If Mayawati’s triumphant and praiseworthy concept of Sarvajan Samaj (all-inclusive society) has a place for Muslims, why is the BJP so queasy about accommodating Muslims in its own electoral strategy? Why didn’t the BJP field a single Muslim candidate in any of the 403 assembly constituencies in a state where Muslims constitute 18.5 per cent of the population? The party indeed has some justification in criticising its political opponents for Muslim “appeasement”, but is it practising its own precept — namely, “Justice for All” — when it neither takes up any just issues of Indian Muslims nor feels morally and ideologically obliged to give due democratic representation to such a huge section of Indian society? How can the BJP hope to govern India if it continues to have an emotional disconnect with Indian Muslims?Some leaders of the Sangh Parivar even go to the extent of haughtily saying, “We don’t need Muslim votes.” Well, democracy has a predictable way of punishing these bigots. The BSP, a party of the Scheduled Castes, moved away from badmouthing brahmins to embracing them, thereby scripting a winning electoral formula without alienating Muslims. Call it soft Hindutva or anything else, but it has worked. Who then is preventing the BJP from similarly expanding its support base by moving away from its half-hearted, on-again-off-again attempts to reach out to Indian Muslims to making it a sincere component of its ideological commitment, political activism and election strategy? We know the answer: it is those who are urging it to adopt “aggressive Hindutva” in pursuit of non-existent, even counter-productive, electoral gains. [IE]

No wonder many of the dazed BJP supporters are calling for Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi being given charge of UP BJP! Havent these people learnt anything yet? Oh yes! it will take a long time for them to recover from the tight slap administered by UP voters on BJP 'face'.

The Errors Committed by Psephologists

Dipankar Gupta in an article tells us about the errors committed by the so-called psephologists while trying to decode the Uttar Pradesh voters.

The first error is that psephologists either don’t realise that there are far too many castes even in an assembly constituency than there are candidates. So even a die-hard casteist voter will, in all likelihood, have to opt for someone who does not belong to the same ‘jati’. There are roughly 20-25 such castes in each constituency and not an equal number of serious contenders for power. So rural voters have to eventually decide on a candidate on matters other than the caste to which he/she belongs. There is just no other option. It is hardly as if there is one candidate for every caste in every constituency. Psephologists make their second error when they say that each caste issues a kind of whip commandeering its members to vote for one party or the other. According to them, the rural Indian cannot think independently and responds slavishly to the call of caste. This is a ridiculous idea. Anyone who is familiar with village India will know that not only is the bush telegraph more fiction than fact, but so is the idea of a bumbling rural idiot. The everyday village voter is not hopelessly tied to cultural genes. He considers other variables before approaching the ballot box. As this point is missed out by psephologists, they see no problem in churning out figures like 21 per cent Lodhs voted for the Samajwadi Party and 50 per cent Brahmins for BJP. Even if one accepts these spurious facts, the psephologists should have logically gone on to inquire into whose arms have the remaining 79 per cent Lodhs and 50 per cent Brahmins fled? Why did they vote differently? Surely, these are good follow-up questions, but psephologists never ask them. As a consequence of the first two errors, the psephologist commits the further mistake in believing that on account of the purity-pollution hierarchy, OBCs like Gujjars and Jats, or forwards like Brahmins and Baniyas, or Scheduled Castes, Harijans and Valmikis spontaneously strike a political accord. So if there is a caste correlation that appears to fit this mould even partially, no further explanation is required. The truth again is very different. Gujjars are not the natural allies of Jats just because both are clubbed as OBCs rather generously by Mandalites. Jats hate Gujjars and this sentiment is reciprocated. There are Gujjar tales of Jat opportunism and Jats have popular fables of alleged Gujjar cowardice. Similar discords exist between Baniyas, Brahmins and Rajputs as between members of different Scheduled Castes. If there is a single feature that characterises caste relations across the board it is one of ‘mutual repulsion’. Now we are ready to appreciate why the recent poll predictions were almost entirely in error. None of the psephologists predicted that the BSP would get an absolute majority simply because they fractionated voters minutely by caste. These pollsters would have done better if they had asked on what grounds members of different castes coalesce politically. As the UP election has shown, jati loyalty is not the key. The emergence of a degree of caste correlation with electoral outcome is because economic, social and structural considerations bring otherwise hostile jatis together in caste blocks or clusters. Mayawati knows only too well that caste battles are fought on shifting sands. It is much better to seek partners who have common enemies and common aspirations, and hang prior enmities. As both upper castes and scheduled castes see the OBC threatening their lives and livelihood, it makes good political sense to get these traditional polar opposites together. This is a truth that Mayawati grasped easily but it escaped the psephologist who is burdened by elitist textbook readings of caste. [......] But psephologists need to reinvent themselves in a hurry. By insisting on the pre-eminence of caste round the clock during election time they are not only wrong, but also dangerous. Incorrect though they are on every count, they succeed, however, in a somewhat devious way. They are successfully able to pander to popular prejudice by continuously harping on individual caste identities. It is in this sense that they play a negative social role that borders on the subversive.

In the rest of the article he looks at the current situation in rural India.

As Indian society is just coming out of the natural economy of a stagnant village, there is still the hangover of the past in terms of occupations and secular opportunities. Scheduled castes who were not allowed to own land or train themselves in socially valuable skills are even today at the bottom of the heap. Their aspirations are, therefore, quite different from those of the Jats, Gujjars, Kurmis and Koeris. These so-called ‘backwards’ still call the shots in rural India because they are educationally and economically better-off than the scheduled castes and, hence, better networked with state agencies and functionaries. As they have greater control over state resources, they corner a larger chunk of its largesse as well. Not surprisingly, they are also the primary sponsors of the pro-Mandal movement. It is widely known that some of the worst thugs in Uttar Pradesh come from the fold of the ‘backwards’, but what should be equally appreciated is that the village-based scheduled castes face the brunt of their violence. Brahmins and Baniyas matter little to the poor rural Dalits. These so-called ‘forwards’ are physically scarce and politically insignificant in rural India. Land reforms and sub-division of holdings drove the traditional upper castes away from the village. They left behind a vacuum that was energetically filled by the ‘backwards’. It is, therefore, easier for the so-called ‘forwards’ to link with scheduled castes, and vice-versa, today because they have no secular interests that pit them against each other. If each of these three major caste categories, the ‘forwards’, ‘backwards’ and scheduled castes, are politically significant, as in this election, it is because powerful secular interests bind them together. It is caste blocks such as these that function as political actors and not fractionated entities like Lodhs, Kurmis, Brahmins, Baniyas, etc.

The Elephant Ride

A Look at UP Elections

The people of Uttar Pradesh have spoken and thrashing all pre-poll concoctions have voted the Bahujan Samaj Party lead by the one and only Mayawati with a simple majority to lord over them for the next five years.


As the route to power in Delhi is through Lucknow - and as I have predicted earlier - with such a performance, it’s only a matter of time before Mayawati sat on the PM’s chair. Only a bullet can stop this.


Now that the verdict is out, its time to take a look at the seven-phase poll.


It is an astounding feat for the EC to have held a poll in crime infested UP without a single violent incident. This success of holding crime free election once more gives importance to Police reforms in India. The message is that if the Police are not under the control of the state govt, the better will be the law and order situation in the state.


The final voter turnout in UP was 44%. And still we have a clear result in the elections with Mayawati winning a simple majority. Due to the EC’s no-nonsense security arrangements, SP goons couldn’t work their magic and consequently lost but surprisingly increased their vote share. No wonder then Mulayam blamed the EC for SP’s defeat. This defeat doesn’t mean Mulayam is down and out. He can hope to capitalise on Mayawati’s blunders to bounce back just like the BJP has got back its urban Hindu vote bank due to the stupidities of the Congress Party led UPA govt.


BJP, which was hoping to capture Delhi in 2009 via Lucknow, will now have to find another route to Delhi. After all the alliance and caste arithmetic they conjured up for the UP yudh, the BJP alliance at the end of day ended up with just 51 seats. Something unbelievable after the same party had swept the UP urban areas consolidating the urban Hindu vote in the municipal elections a few months earlier. So why did BJP’s traditional upper-caste and OBC voters all over the state desert it this time despite its mother organisation the RSS working overtime to maximise BJP’s chances? Are they fed up with its communal politics? Are they sick of BJP’s anti-Muslim propaganda CDs and vitriolic anti-Muslim speeches? Are they not worried about national security?


The Congress Party’s performance in UP after all the high expectations from their messiah Rahul baba turned out to be a damp squib. From hoping to win about 50 seats - and play the kingmaker - the Congress party ended up with just 21 seats that is four down from last time. Surely it takes more than road shows, whining about fourteen ‘lost’ years and hogging the limelight on television to capture power in UP. If the indicators are anything, then it is only a matter of time before the Congress Party is wiped out in UP.


The way Mayawati wove her mayajaal over the voters of UP is amazing. To her solid Dalit vote base she has added this time upper-castes (chiefly Brahmins), some OBCs and some Muslims. What we are seeing is the repeat of the social engineering of the Congress party before Mandal and Mandir with the Dalits replacing the upper-castes as the dominant group. Her “Sarvajan Samaj” experiment has resulted in BSP forming a govt on its own for the first time in UP. It is definitely a sea change if the Brahmins and other upper-castes are ready to trust a Dalit with their future instead of a party for them formed by them. It remains to be seen if Mayawati is able to replicate her “Sarvajan Samaj” experiment in rest of India especially in Rajastan and Madhya Pradesh, which are going to polls in 2008. Mayawati is eyeing the Hindutva laboratory of Gujarat next. Will she be able to destroy the hate lab for once and for all?


Once again the Muslim voter of UP turned out to be far shrewder than any of the armchair political analysts ever thought. Just like in 2004 general elections this time too they voted to defeat BJP.BJP was pinning on the splintering of the Muslim vote to see them through in many seats. Even if this had happened how would the BJP have won when the upper-castes too had deserted them? No wonder the BJP bigwigs are at their wits end trying to decipher the UP verdict.


Mayawati didn’t ask for the Muslim vote openly still they voted tactically to elect the non-BJP stronger candidate. The best news is that they were clever enough not to fall for BJP’s insidious provocations and at the same time to see the futility of voting for Muslim parties that sprang up recently in order to ‘protect’ the interests of Indian Muslims. If the Muslims of UP have such intelligence then why cant they use it to enable them to stand shoulder to shoulder with rest of Indians? How long will they live in their own cocoon?


When Mayawati became the CM for the first time it was reported that she made a cool 250 crores in six months flat. Now with a mandate for five years, only god almighty can predict how much she will end up with.


Psephology and UP Elections
In the age of satellite television and the Internet, Indian psephology and psephologists are having a good time. What with professionals and wannabes having a go at it. It has become immaterial whether the ‘psephologists’ are getting it right or wrong. All that matters is getting more eyeballs and hits to ones channel or website.


Prannoy Roy called the father of Indian psephology who once upon a time used to get all his predictions right lost it completely after Mandal and Mandir made its mark in Indian elections. Fed up with getting muck on his face every time, Roy had no option but stop predicting all together. But with the proliferation of English news channels, which had no qualms in trying their hands at psephology, he had no option but to restart it. After moderate success in calling some recent state elections correctly, his big test was undoubtedly Uttar Pradesh. UP is no two-party state but a cauldron of caste and communal politics and Prannoy Roy failed miserably in this acid test. His elaborate half-hour exit poll programmes had everything to hoodwink viewers. What was amazing was the way many intelligent Internet savvy people fell hook, line and sinker for Roy’s subterfuge. At first he tom-tomed the fact that for his exit poll, he polled more voters than his nearest rival (read CNN-IBN). In other words his predictions are trustworthy than his rivals. At the start of the polls, Roy had given BJP very few seats (55-60 seats) but the moment the communal CD became news, he simply doubled BJP’s figures to 95-105 seats. Any astute mind would have seen through this and asked some tough questions but the moron the viewer is believed him. So at the end of the seventh phase, Roy gave BJP 108-118 seats, which is nowhere near the actual 51 seats BJP alliance won. So it is clear Prannoy Roy has not made any essential changes to his psephological methods so that he gets his predictions correct but is only trying to increase the TRPs of his channels with his exit poll rip off.


At the end of the day only one psephologist got anywhere near to the actual figures. Many people will have a hard time in believing how this much-mocked psephologist got anywhere near to the actual winning figures. He is the guy who called the caste-ridden state of Bihar correctly. What does that mean? Its simply means he and his team have access to some kind of data and software that can decipher the poll signals almost correctly. So next time before one cast aspersions on experts in their respective fields, it will be better to ask oneself whether he or she is qualified to take on the so-called expert or not. Armchair expertise-ing is a dangerous thing.


It is nice to see wannabe psephologists too trying their hand at psephology. But when one tries to engineer the findings to fit ones political leanings or ideology, you are bound to end up with muck egg on your face. Another thing wannabes - who are probably sitting in some nice air-conditioned cabin or cubicle - shouldn’t try is questioning the professionals who always have access to stuff wannabes can never have.

Educating Rahul Gandhi

A few truths for Rahul and a look at his future.


The desperation on Rahul Baba’s face is showing. After all he has to revive his moribund Party in the caste-ridden state of Uttar Pradesh if he and his family have to carry on their family business. Every other day Rahul Baba gives the praja of India lessons in Indian history. His first lesson was on the politics of Babri Masjid/Ram Mandir issue. According to him had a Gandhi been active in politics in 1992, the Babri Masjid wouldn’t have been demolished. Its hard to believe him after all that his Dad did to see the Mandir replace the Masjid. Or maybe he was right. But shouldn’t we also focus on why did the then PM late PV Narasimha Rao accept the then UP CM Kalyan Singh’s assurance of safeguarding the Masjid and didn’t proactively take steps to protect the Masjid by imposing president rule in UP?


Today looking back to those days then one way the demolition of the Masjid has been a blessing in disguise for the country. Let me explain.


In 1991 satellite television beamed live the Gulf War into our living rooms and thus the satellite television revolution hit India. Today India has the most number of satellite news channels who are constantly on the lookout for captivating news to drive their TRPs northwards. Just imagine the political capital the Sangh Parivar would have made year after year by holding public meetings in front of the Masjid where rabblerousing speeches are delivered with the Masjid being described as an eyesore standing on the birthplace of Lord Ram. Would the satellite new channels let go of an opportunity to drive their TRPs northwards by not telecasting the meetings? I am of the opinion that PVN foresaw the power of Satellite television and saved at least South India from Hindutva forces by his ‘inaction’ in December 1992. Today some states in the South are more than 80% cabled.


With the Masjid demolished the Sangh Parivar lost the object of hate they so loved to deride and use to whip up communal passions in otherwise sedate Hindu men and women. Moreover, the PVN govt had started to unshackle an economy that was chained up by the Nehru-Gandhi Dynasty. A free market economy cannot succeed in an environment of strife and mayhem. IMO it is because of the demolition of the Masjid in 1992 that the BJP never crossed 190 Lok Sabha seats till today and thus was unable to turn rest of India into the lab of Hindutva as they had done to Gujarat. So if Rahul Baba’s Congress Party is ruling at the Center today, in a way he can thank late PVN for facilitating it by bottling the genie his Dad let out when he opened the locks of the Masjid and allowed Shilanyas thus legitimising BJP’s Ram Mandir Movement.


At Rahul Baba’s second teaching session the praja were subjected to a barrage of new theories on the freedom movement, Bangladesh liberation war, and India’s economic renaissance.


The arrogance emanating out of being born with a "power spoon" in his mouth is clearly evident in Rahul Baba statements. Someone tell him it is the Gujju Gandhi who is the father of this nation and not the Kashmiri Nehru who just happened to be Bapu’s favourite. Someone please tell Rahul Baba that Albert Einstein once wrote: “generations to come, it may be, will scarce believe that such one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth" about the half-naked fakir. No one wrote anything like that about his great-grandfather.


Someone tell Rahul Baba that the British didn’t transfer India to the Nehru-Gandhi Dynasty as their private jagir (estate). Millions of nameless Indians heeded the call of the Mahatma for nonviolent struggle against the British rule. Millions braved the lathis and bullets as they faced the mightiest empire on the planet. Others like Bagat Singh, Azad, Bose, etc felt this ideology was kaput and violent revolution was their chosen path to freedom. At the time of independence the Mahatma - whose word was sacrosanct in the INC - was adamant on making Nehru India’s first Prime Minister. This was the only reason why this country fell into the hands of the Nehru–Gandhi dynasty despite severe opposition in the INC itself to his candidature.


Then Rahul Baba’s next lesson was on how Indira Gandhi divided Pakistan. Someone please tell Rahul Baba that the liberation of Bangladesh and thus dismembering of Pakistan was not anything that was planned and executed by Indira Gandhi a la Musharraf’s Kargil fiasco. Even school kids know that Indira Gandhi only exploited Pakistan’s mishandling of the crisis in East Pakistan. With 93,000 Pakistani POWs and good chunks of West Pakistani territory in hand, Indira had another chance to correct her father’s biggest blunder but she being her father’s daughter lost what the Indian army had won on the battlefield on the negotiating table that too on a mere verbal promise by Bhutto. Rahul would like to remember that Indian Muslims he is assiduously trying too woo were never really for the creation of Bangladesh. With this claim he might have just pissed of those Muslims who were falling for his charms in the UP elections.


Now looking back, has interfering in Pakistan’s internal affairs done any good to us? This mail in "The Hindu" is revealing:

It was a pyrrhic victory for India in the 1971 war if one considers its long-term consequences. Earlier, India had to deal with only one enemy whose eastern wing was its Achilles' heel. In 1971, it relieved the Pakistani military establishment of the onerous burden of safeguarding its east and enabled it to focus on Kashmir. We are now in an unenviable position of having to deal with independent but inimical states on both our flanks.[The Hindu]

On a lighter note today India would have been playing in the Cricket World Cup Super 8’s in the Windies if Bangladesh weren’t around.


Then Rahul Baba took lessons on India’s economy. Now this coming from someone who can’t even calculate correctly the average growth rate of India minus Uttar Pradesh is hard to digest. If only someone told this guy about the nearly irreparable damage done to this nation’s economy particularly to the economy of the BIMARU states by the Nehru-Gandhi Dynasty’s retarded economic policies.


Rahul Gandhi’s Future


Now lets look at the Congress and Rahul’s future. The question is whether Rahul Gandhi can ever lead the Congress on its own or as part of a coalition to power and become India’s PM? I am of the firm view that never ever will a Gandhi from the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty win a mandate and sit on the PM’s chair. Let me explain.


For sometime now the Congress has been steadily losing one vote bank after the other especially in the highly populated North India. Mandal and Mandir gifted the upper caste vote to the BJP. BSP took away the Dalit vote and a demolished Masjid gifted the Muslim vote to SP, BSP, RJD, etc.


As the Congress declined in the North, the ascendant BJP was inching closer to power at the Center with help of regional parties. BJP that had built its vote bank on the divisive Ram Mandir issue, just couldn’t fulfill its main promise of building a Ram Mandir at Ayodhya despite being in power for more than six years. Nor did it deliver on its other pet issues like Article 370, UCC, etc. Moreover, India’s most humiliating events occurred during BJP’s rule – the Kandahar humiliation, Parliament attack, etc. All these resulted in disillusionment among the upper castes who rejected the BJP in the general elections of 2004.


Another reason why BJP lost power in 2004 was because of the tactical voting by the Muslims who were undoubtedly rattled by the state sponsored Gujarat riots. Their only aim was to defeat BJP at any cost. In UP where the BJP was hoping to win 50-60 LS seats had to contend with 10 seats. The UP Muslims voted en bloc for the Samajwadi Party in order to defeat BJP.


In the state elections of 2003 BJP won a landslide in three of the four states not only because of the anti-incumbency factor but also because BSP had cut into Congress’s sizable Dalit vote in MP and Rajasthan resulting in Congress losing a large number of seats to the BJP.


Once BSP has the Dalit vote it never returns to Congress. This fact the Congress Party is yet to comprehend. The latest loss was in the Delhi Municipal elections where the BSP won 15 seats and due to vote cutting the Congress lost 60-65 seats to the BJP.Be it Delhi, Punjab, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, etc the sizable Dalit vote is fast slipping out of the Congress hands and it has no strategy to contain the flow.


Right now the Congress Party is on a single-point agenda of reviving its Muslim vote bank so the person who humiliated Sonia Gandhi bites the dust in Uttar Pradesh. In its zeal to see Mulayam’s end, the Congress party had thrown the national interest to the wind. By appeasing Muslims at the cost of national interest and the OBCs at the cost of upper castes, it hope to take away Mulayam’s vote bank of Yadavs and Muslims. But poll signals emanating from UP and elsewhere is not supporting this. Rather, the Congress has lost seat after seat to BJP, BSP, SP, etc since 2004 general elections.


IMO the 2008 state elections will be the break or make election for the Congress Party and Rahul Gandhi in North India. If anti-incumbency can get Congress some votes then BSP will ensure Congress losing Dalit votes resulting in BJP’s return to power in Rajasthan and MP. Delhi is already out of Congress hands. The way things are in Chattisgarh the Congress has a chance there if they can exploit the tribal disillusionment.


Now coming to South India, Congress is still in the reckoning in Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Pondicherry. In Tamil Nadu it has been reduced to BJP’s level in Andhra Pradesh.


In South India BJP has been able to make a mark only in Karnataka that too after flogging the divisive “Ayodhya of South” dispute.


In Andhra, BJP had to be content with the breadcrumbs thrown at them by the Telugu Desam Party. After the electorate voted out TDP mainly because of its support to BJP at the center even after Gujarat riots, the TDP has rightly cut all ties with BJP. It is only a matter of time before Chandrababu Naidu is back in power with the vote of all sections of the people of Andhra Pradesh. Now it is up to the Muslims of Andhra Pradesh not to play into the hands of Sanghis by indulging in stupid anti-national/pan-islam activities. We need peace in Andhra Pradesh to realise the vision of Chandrababu Naidu at a faster pace.


The rest of South Indian Muslims too should realise that the BJP can only grow in South India if they can find any communal situation to exploit and it is up to them not to create any such situation. After fifteen years of economic liberalisation, South India has emerged as the economic powerhouse of India. Lets take this chance and prosper together.


Looking forward to 2009 general elections, the Congress with its Muslim/OBC-appeasing agenda having driven the upper-castes back into BJP’s hands and with no clue on how to handle the economy, which in turn is driving the rest of its vote bank away will find it a Herculean task to win even 25 seats in North India. In South, West and NE India the picture in 2009 will be equally bleak due to the anti-incumbency factor in TN, AP, Assam, Maharashtra and Pondicherry, etc


It remains to be seen whether the present PM Manmohan Singh will be replaced with Rahul Gandhi anytime during the remaining tenure of the UPA govt. Other than that there is no way Rahul Gandhi will ever become India’s PM.


If Mayawati is able to provide a credible alternative to the Congress and the BJP in 2009, IMO many regional parties that are supporting the Congress or BJP today will be open to ally with BSP with Behenji as the Prime Ministerial candidate.

Stratfor's 2007 Second Quarter Forecast

Here is Stratfor's 2007 second quarter forecast for South Asia, East Asia and the Global Economy.

South Asia: Domestic Issues, the Taliban and Musharraf's Struggle The annual forecast for 2007 emphasized that Pakistani politics would be the most significant driver in South Asia, as Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's political standing would carry implications for the U.S.-led campaign against al Qaeda and Taliban forces in the region. This issue will remain dominant in the region in the second quarter. Musharraf has devised a complex strategy to ensure that he remains in power as president and military chief through the January 2008 general elections. But his election gambit took a turn for the worse in March when he acted on bad advice and gave the green light to sack the country's chief justice. Though Musharraf's intent was to clear a potential obstacle to his re-election bid, he sparked a nationwide outcry against the military-dominated regime that has forced him into a compromising situation that will end up forcing him to give up a certain degree of power. Musharraf will be in damage-control mode during the second quarter, and could attempt to temporarily defuse the crisis by restoring the chief justice. Such an outcome, however, will only further erode Musharraf's ability to rule, and would create a crisis of governance. Meanwhile, radical Islamist forces in the country will take advantage of the political fracas to increase suicide attacks and expand their efforts to "Talibanize" Pakistan beyond the Pashtun areas. Given Musharraf's weak political standing, the Pakistani government's cautious approach will not thwart the growing radical movement. To salvage his political position and help combat religious extremism in the country, Musharraf might have no choice but to encourage his allies in the ruling Pakistan Muslim League to consider working out a power-sharing agreement with secular parties in the opposition, namely the Pakistan People's Party-Parliamentarians. The United States will watch these developments in Pakistan closely, and will give Musharraf some breathing room while he attempts to sort out problems at home. Washington has an interest in ensuring that Musharraf maintains a hold on power and that the military remains at the helm, even if concessions need to be made to the civilian opposition parties. Taliban activity in Afghanistan will intensify this spring, with a heavy emphasis on suicide attacks against Afghan and NATO forces. A coordinated campaign by Taliban and al Qaeda militants also appears to be under way, in which motorcades carrying high-value military or intelligence officials are singled out. NATO and Afghan forces will mount a strong counteroffensive, making this quarter a particularly bloody one. The Afghan government of President Hamid Karzai and its NATO allies will focus on their hunt for pragmatic Taliban in an effort to undercut the jihadist insurgency. This will involve negotiating via tribal elders across the Pashtun areas in southern and eastern Afghanistan, reaching out to Hizb-i-Islami chief Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and driving a wedge between Taliban commanders in Afghanistan and the Taliban elements allied to the Mullah Omar-based leadership, which has close links to al Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban. In India, domestic political and social issues continue to absorb the government's attention. The ruling Congress party is struggling to maintain a populist attitude toward India's lower classes while appeasing Indian corporate interests. This balancing act has left both sides unsatisfied and has provided the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party an opening to advance itself. Congress' hold on the central government will not be seriously threatened in the second quarter, but the party will have to rely heavily on populist measures to win back support. A hot issue over the next few months will center on the creation of additional special economic zones (SEZs) throughout India. Impoverished farmers backed by vociferous leftist groups will intensify their resistance to the SEZs' creation. Maoist rebels, also known as Naxalites, will try to take advantage of the tensions stemming from the government's bid to acquire farmers' lands for the SEZs by intensifying their operations against security, political and economic targets in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Orissa. India also will pay closer attention to its southern neighbor, where the Sri Lankan army is engaged in major tit-for-tat fighting against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. Colombo will lobby hard for increased military assistance and advanced radar equipment to combat the Tigers, but the Congress party will remain cautious about enhancing Sri Lanka's military capabilities for fear of alienating the Indian Tamil population and the party's Tamil political allies. The Tigers will attempt to resist Sri Lanka's aerial assaults in their eastern strongholds by turning to more spectacular attacks, including suicide bombings, and by demonstrating the expansion of their naval and air branches. In Nepal, the interim government and Maoists will limp toward finalizing a peace deal that will allow the Maoists to formally enter the government and erode the royal family's political position. Though general elections are slated for mid-June, there is a strong possibility that they will not take place on time considering the deteriorating law and order situation in the southern plains of Terai, where Maoists and a group of plains people, known as Madhesis, are locked in turmoil. East Asia: Continuing to Look Inward Stratfor's annual forecast noted that 2007 would be a year for East Asia to look inward, focusing on domestic and regional issues -- with the regional rivalry between China and Japan growing prominent as the year played out. In the first quarter, this trend manifested itself in several ways. The region's central governments continued to grow more powerful, especially in China, where Beijing tightened control over regional and local governments. The latest Communist Party secretary appointments undoubtedly strengthened Chinese President Hu Jintao's hold over the provincial and city leadership while consolidating Beijing's economic rule. Thailand's military regime also started planning to permanently reinsert itself into the country's political landscape. Regional geopolitical insecurity drove Beijing to undertake its January anti-satellite missile test, which was intended to warn the United States that although China said it would not "undertake military adventures in 2007," it also would not sit idly by should Taiwan attempt to push for formal independence on the eve of the 2008 Olympics. Mirroring China, Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian continued to push for independence in an effort to prevent Taiwan from becoming irrelevant within the region. Unexpected financial turbulence shook global markets when the Shanghai stock market dipped in March, sending ripples around the world. Fundamentals changed little afterward, however, as the ripples did not stem from any real change in China's economic structure; psychologically, though, China's capacity for global financial effects is in a new spotlight. Domestic political consolidation and constitutional change are still the key domestic policy drivers in Japan and South Korea. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is continuing to push for change for Japan's Constitution and defense structure, such as elevating the Defense Agency to a ministry and expanding defense cooperation with Australia. South Korea's ruling minority Uri Party split from President Roh Moo Hyun to clean house and select its presidential candidate, freeing up Roh to push through changes to the country's fundamentally diseased constitutional structure. As we head into the second quarter, two dominant themes will drive events in East Asia: countries' introspection as they are consumed by internal elections and politicking, and intraregional nuclear discussions and economic interactions. Other possible factors are the emergence of a new trilateral Japanese-Australian-U.S. security arrangement and success for Taiwan's Chen in his efforts to provoke China. Probabilities for the former are nearly certain, and those for the latter are unknown. Thailand is due for a new draft constitution April 19, which likely will enshrine the military's role in government, though not by including a clause for an "unelected prime minister" as previously suggested by the military chief. This will more likely happen via more subtle clauses designed to insert military representation throughout the central and provincial government departments. If the opposition uses this draft to generate a massive groundswell of anti-military sentiment, the regime's ability to retain control with minimal violence will be tested. The regime will continue to enhance its skills in balancing the country's different factions. The usual cycle of violence in the south will continue. This quarter will see more Chinese political reshuffling to smooth the path for the country's fifth generation of leaders -- a process to be completed by 2012. Hu will move more of his chosen successors into place for final training before promotion to the Politburo, which likely will occur at the Party Congress this fall. Shanghai will be used as a new training ground for Hu protege Xi Jinping -- who recently was promoted to become the city's party secretary -- and also as a regional showcase of what local governments must do to avoid a crackdown. More responsibility for economic reforms will be shifted to private and foreign investors, with industries previously considered "too strategic" (such as oil and health care) being released from the state's iron grip. The new foreign exchange investment company could be established this quarter in order to kickstart an outward flow of renminbi-denominated investment funds. China needs to continue pushing investors to send their appreciating local currencies overseas in order to rein in an excess supply of money inside the country -- a root cause of the economy's imbalanced growth. The first stage of the six-party nuclear deal is set for completion April 14, when North Korea closes its Yongbyon reactor. Each party will use minor reasons to delay progress in order to pursue its own agenda, but progress should still continue, with or without directly addressing North Korea's existing nuclear weapons. This quarter kicked off with a successful conclusion to the South Korean-U.S. free trade agreement (FTA) talks. A flurry of intraregional interactions now will descend upon East Asia, with South Korea likely to speed up efforts to make similar agreements with the European Union, Gulf Cooperation Council states and China. Another deal worth watching is the Australian-Japanese FTA talks starting April 23, which could shed more light on the new regional trilateral security arrangement. For the rest of East Asia, FTAs and economics will be the main channel through which bargaining chips are dealt and exchanged in return for progression on other economic and political issues. Talk of a regional FTA might even resurface. The structure of East Asia's new trilateral security arrangement will emerge, as the lines of military cooperation and interdependencies between Japan, Australia and the United States gradually take shape. China and Japan will continue a flow of positive diplomatic rhetoric and superficial actions, but remain fundamentally distrustful of each other. China will try to use its economic leverage with Australia to influence or gain additional insights into the new arrangement being established in its backyard. While still preoccupied in the Middle East, the United States will not explicitly target China, but the new security arrangement is intended to indicate where Washington's attention will next settle. Taiwan's Chen already has swapped out his country's representative to the United States and convinced the Democratic Progressive Party to propose the formal abandonment of the "Five Nos" policy. Although he is constrained in his push for constitutional change, Chen's ultimate goal is to reshape both the domestic and international perceptions of Taiwan. With Beijing preparing to host the 2008 Olympics, Chen sees this as his opportunity to rile China with his "provocative" comments and acts. Either he will prod China into lashing out -- thus proving his point that China is the real threat to regional security -- or China will simply ignore Chen's actions, giving him proof for the Taiwanese people that Beijing's threats are hollow and that Taiwan should formally pursue its own national identity and independence. Either way, Taiwan will become a key driver of regional security attention and arrangements. Global Economy: Short-Term Shakiness, But No Recession Stratfor expects that the irrationalities introduced by the past six years of rapid economic growth could trigger a shakedown in the U.S. economy that will stop shy of an actual recession. By the end of the second quarter, however, the United States will have dodged the bullet and should be surging ahead. The quarter could even end with the rest of the world wobbling as the United States climbs, but this too likely will pass. Unfortunately for the rest of the world, the United States does not exist in isolation. From 1945 to 1985, very little of the U.S. economy was locked up in international trade, so when the United States suffered a recession, that recession's effect on the rest of the world was rather limited. As time rolled on, however -- and certainly by the late 1990s -- the United States became more involved, and now trade is just over 25 percent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP). In relative terms, that is still rather little (Germany's trade is more than 70 percent of its GDP), but in absolute terms it represents about $3 trillion annually. In practical terms, the U.S. economy has become the global economy's market of first and last resort. Consequently, to paraphrase Wall Street investors, when the United States sneezes, the world catches a cold. Before the United States became so exposed, a U.S. recession meant money fled abroad. Now, however, since much of the rest of the world depends on U.S. markets, economic troubles in the United States directly translate into economic problems in the countries that like to sell to the United States. So U.S. economic troubles still lead to capital flight, but now that flight is to the United States instead of from it. One result of this is that recessions are extremely short and mild in the United States. (Witness the brief, shallow recessions of 1990-1991 and 2001 -- the only recessions the United States has suffered in the past 25 years.) The one saving grace for the rest of the world -- and it is a huge one -- is that, compared to what it was in 1990, domestic consumption in the developing world (including China) and in Europe has expanded greatly. While the United States certainly is the system's center, the rest of the system has sufficient bulk to self-ballast. So though a U.S. slowdown still causes more problems overseas than it does in the United States, it is hardly tantamount to an economic death sentence. Overall, the economic volatility of the first quarter will intensify in the second, but by the time we reach the third, the United States will have pulled through. Once that happens, confidence should leak back into the rest of the global system and short-circuit a similar slowdown before it can do any serious damage. However, there are two outliers to note. First, U.S. economists are concerned about faltering subprime mortgage markets. To make an incredibly complex story simple, subprime mortgages are granted to people whose credit is not strong enough to qualify for a mortgage under normal circumstances. The specific part of the market that is suffering are those subprime lenders who have taken on variable-rate mortgages, which lock in an extraordinarily low rate -- allowing almost anyone to qualify because of the low payments that result -- but then force a later refinancing at normal rates, typically five years hence. These subprime variable-rate mortgages were first offered en masse five years ago. Now it is time to pay the piper, and many cannot. The good news is that of a total U.S. mortgage market of $10 trillion, the entire subprime market -- and many of these will not go bad -- is "only" worth about $650 billion. The bad news is that this sort of irresponsible mortgage has been given out for five years now, which means more mortgages are guaranteed to go bad. The impact is small, but the tailwind is now locked into the system for the next five years. Second, there are two states where additional economic problems could crop up in the second quarter. The first, Japan, is the only country where domestic demand continues to underperform, making it perennially vulnerable to international economic downdrafts. Fresh statistics also indicate that deflation -- once thought defeated -- has returned. The second state, Germany, is struggling to slough off a decade of subpar growth. To balance its budget, Germany raised its consumption tax by 3 percent in the first quarter -- a step that, while fiscally sound, risks the recent progress Germany has made resuscitating its economy. Of the two, we are more hopeful for Germany, where growth -- and confidence -- is better entrenched.[Stratfor]

Was Bob Woolmer Murdered?

Too bad if this is true.

Senior sources in Jamaican police have confirmed to TIMES NOW that Pakistan team coach Bob Woolmer did not die a natural death but was murdered. The murder angle which was first reported by TIMES NOW on Tuesday (March 21), has not been explicitly confirmed by Jamaican police, who have taken a guarded line merely stating that there is a “bit of suspicion” in the circumstances of Woolmer’s death. In a presser today (March 21), the Deputy Commissioner of the Jamaican Police, Mark Shields, said that the initial post-mortem results confirm that his death was “under suspicious circumstances” and that it merited a “full scale investigation”. He also said that apart from the murder angle the police is looking into the motive behind the suspected murder. Woolmer's death has been linked to Pakistan's shock defeat against Ireland. The late Pakistan coach was reported to have been depressed after Pakistan's loss and had reportedly said that it had been “one of the worst days” of his life. Pak team to stay on Shields also said that each and every member of the Pakistan team was questioned on their whereabouts at the time of Woolmer's death. As of now Pakistan will play their last league game against Zimbabwe; however they will stay back in Jamaica after that till the Jamaican police are satisfied that all questions have been answered. The announcement on the investigation effectively removes the PCB from the whole affair, as Woolmer’s death is now a criminal case with his wife now directly involved with the Jamaica police and in contact with them. “Strong indications of murder” The police and PCB team in Jamaica today confirmed off the record to TIMES NOW, outside the theatre where the autopsy took place, that there were “strong indications” that it was murder, prompting authorities to announce that the results had been inconclusive. Reports of the toxicology and histology tests are still awaited. Sources have told TIMES NOW that the PCB is upset over the news of the suspected Woolmer homicide being splashed all over the media, saying it was against Jamaican law to give out this information before Jamaican authorities did. The fact that one of the world’s most renowned cricket coaches was possibly murdered 36 hours after his team exited from the World Cup, would not only be a source of deep embarrassment for the PCB, but also have very serious implications on international cricket. Additionally, the homicide conclusion opens the door to a host of possibilities as - not the least of which is that the alleged player-bookie nexus in Pakistan, which would have been dealt a heavy blow from the team’s exit from the World Cup, had a hand in his death. Match fixing ghost is back Also, following allegations by former PCB chief Sarfaraz Nawaz on Tuesday, sources say the PCB is really worried at this point that the direction of the investigation seems to have changed subtly from just an enquiry into the death of Bob Woolmer and why he died, to include the betting issue. Nawaz yesterday alleged that the bookie mafia was involved in Woolmer’s death and that the Pakistan-West Indies match had been fixed. The match fixing ghost never really left the Pakistan team, and with these grey areas now still evident, the PCB will be under pressure now to take some measures to clean up the team’s tarnished reputation. Meanwhile the ICC will also now have to get their anti-corruption unit officers to work to find out if there was any match fixing or betting angle to this suspected murder. The betting angle also assumes significance in the context of a book that Bob Woolmer was writing in which he may have planned to blow the lid off the player-bookie nexus in Pakistan. “Suspicious” circumstances Bob Woolmer was found on Sunday night (March 18, India time) in his hotel room unconscious and in a pool of vomit. He was pronounced dead on reaching the hospital. TIMES NOW sports editor Faisal Shariff spoke to the Pakistan team’s assistant manager Asad Mustafa, who commented that the circumstances in which Woolmer was discovered were “suspicious” from the start – not only was there vomit found, there were also indications that the coach had suffered from diarrhea, his blood sugar testing machine was found on the floor in the bathroom and there was blood on his cheek and eyes.[Times Now]

Too Drunk to Fight Back

The Sorry State of Chhattisgarh Police Force


If what “Times Now” is reporting on the recent massacre of 55 Chhattisgarh policemen by about 400 Maoists is to be believed, then the Chhattisgarh police have only themselves to blame for the large casualties.

The [internal] report [prepared by paramilitary officials] makes clear that the policemen at the Rani Bodli camp were too drunk to fight back. More than that, the report says that no one at the camp undertook night patrols and that a majority of the guards were sleeping when the lethal attack took place. They were so unprepared for the Naxal attack, that a majority of them were not even properly armed. ….investigations into the attack on Rani Bodli camp have revealed that almost the entire force in the camp was drunk. Also, most of the policemen were not on duty, while those on duty were not even properly armed. […] The report says that intelligence inputs about an impending attack were completely ignored and that there was no night patrolling in and around the camp. The report further said that the guards manning the Light Machine Guns had very little or almost no ammunition on them. It also said that the guards on duty were not alert and they noticed the Naxals only after they opened firing. In the attack that took place on the morning of March 15, Naxals also took away more than 37 weapons. According to the report, which is to be submitted to the Union Home Ministry, almost all the guards of the camp were sleeping at the time of the attack.[Times Now]

If this is the way Chhattisgarh policemen are taking on the Naxalites, then why blame anyone else? Of the 55 killed 38 were Special Police Officers (SPOs) who are recruited from the local tribal youths. These SPO are poorly trained and armed. And getting drunk is one of the favourite activities of tribals.


Today Chhattisgarh accounts for a majority of incidents and casualties when it comes to Naxal violence. Last year, Chhattisgarh witnessed 715 incidents of Maoist violence that left around 304 civilians, 84 security personnel and 74 Naxalites dead - a strike rate worse than in Pakistan backed terror–ridden Jammu & Kashmir. To assist the state govt in anti-Naxal operations, the Center has deployed 13 battalions of Central paramilitary forces including CRPF in Chhattisgarh.


There can be no dispute that the major blame for the turning Chhattisgarh into a Naxal haven squarely lies on the state govt headed by BJP. Even after so many deaths the brazen and callous BJP state govt is continuing in office. Will this state govt - where the state DGP is busy composing a lullaby to motivate his hapless police force - ever wake up?

After every Naxal death dance all that the state and central govts do is issue those customary lackadaisical condolence statements and then forget all about the Naxal scourge till the next outrage. For the BJP and the larger Sangh Parivar as long as these tribals remain tribals its fine but once soul harvesters arrive among these tribals, then these very sacrificial tribals become as precious as caste Hindus are for the Sanghis. Unfortunately for even the soul harvesters there is no guarantee that they can carry on their trade in the Naxal infested jungles without their souls being ‘harvested’ by the Naxals. Hence they too don’t want these tribals.

In Andhra Pradesh the Congress govt - despite getting severe flak from many quarters - tried to hold talks with the Naxals and during this period operations against the Naxals were suspended. The Naxals used this opportunity to replenish their supplies and recruit new cadres. The talks eventually failed - as predicted - and the large-scale attacks feared of however haven’t occurred till now. This “success” credited to the vigilant state police especially the elite greyhound commandos. There shouldn’t be any room for complacency to set in because the recent successes of Maoists in Chhattisgarh and elsewhere would embolden them to move on to bigger targets in urban areas. Andhra Pradesh being one of the economic powerhouses of India becomes a marked target in this regard.

The callousness of the so-called vibrant and vigilant Indian press is appalling. They were demanding the head of Narendra Modi when he let the rioters played Holi with blood on the streets of Gujarat. But are blind to see what sorry state CM Raman Singh has brought Chhattisgarh to because the blood of the poor tribals is worthless to the bloody racists that we are.

While We Talk...

...they loot.

According to the statistical figures shown in the report, ULFA collects funds in the range of Rs 25- 50 crore from Indian citizens only through extortion. NSCN-IM has even left ULFA far behind. Ironically, this militant outfit pulls the biggest farce by talking to the government in Delhi and collecting up to Rs 200 crores in extortion. Moreover, the three militant groups in Manipur take home funds to the tune of Rs 55 crores in extortion. The report further mentions that all the efforts and sacrifices of the Army in the North-East has reportedly gone waste since the bureaucrats and the politicians are hands in glove with the militant group, who under the cover of talking to the Indian government are running a parallel economy in the region. For example, in some areas, Grade 1 government employees pay up to one third of their salary as taxes to the militants. Vehicle tax is charged for everything on wheels -- from Rs 1000 for a taxi and Rs 7000 for a tourist bus. Shockingly, even ministers and MLAs pay tax to militants. [Times Now]

As money is something that one can never have enough of, I wonder whether these talks will ever come to end and whether we will ever see a political settelment?

You Grilled the Minister and Now Pay the Price

The Crime:

The UPA government's economic policies seem to be aimed at slowing down the economy and taking us back to the dark socialist days of price-control where "profit" was a bad word. It is good to see a TV journalist [Udayan Mukherjee]putting the Commerce Minister Kamal Nath in a spot of bother by grilling him on his absurd policies which are moving towards price control. This journalist (whose name I forget) shows a good grasp of economics and I hope we see more such intelligent interviews rather than the quasi-scripted farces that parade as interviews on Indian news channels.[Vantage Point]

The Price:

Angry minister Can a minister target a media house just because he didn't like the line of questioning adopted by one of its journalists? Cut up with the aggressive questioning on cement prices by an CNBC anchor [Udayan Mukherjee]during a programme, Commerce Minister Kamal Nath decided to bar the channel from his press conferences. He held a press conference and asked his officials to ask the channel's reporters to leave. A woman reporter from Awaz and her cameramen were quietly taken aside by one of Nath's personal staff and told as much. The rest of the media corps present watched without protest.[The Hoot]

The Unpardonable Sin of Indian Commies

It is a well-know fact that Indian Commies under instruction from their masters in the former Soviet Union stayed away from the Quit India Movement of 1942, as they didn’t want to go jail. But the Indian Commies greatest crime of trying to destabilise the newly independent Indian nation is hardy talked about. This is because the majority of intellectuals and historians in India are notoriously Commies at heart.

Historian and Nehru worshipper Ramachandra Guha has exposed the unpardonable crime of Indian Commies - who never ever thought of India's good - in a recent article.

....When India became independent in August 1947, the general secretary of the CPI was P.C. Joshi, a cultured, sensitive man who understood that freedom had come through the struggle and sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of ordinary Indians. A statement issued by the CPI thus acknowledged that the Congress was “the main national democratic organization”, and said the party would “fully co-operate with the national leadership in the proud task of building the Indian Republic on democratic foundations….” However, by the end of 1947, P.C. Joshi found his line challenged by the radical faction of the CPI. This claimed that the freedom that India had obtained was false — “Ye Azaadi Jhoota Hai”, the slogan went — and asked that the party declare an all-out war against the government of India. The radicals were led by B.T. Ranadive, who saw in the imminent victory of the Chinese communists a model for himself and his comrades. A peasant struggle was already on in Hyderabad, against the feudal regime of the Nizam — why not use that as a springboard for the Indian revolution? On February 28, 1948 — four weeks after Gandhi’s murder — the CPI leadership met in Calcutta, and confirmed that the revolutionary line would prevail. Joshi was replaced as general secretary by Ranadive, who declared that the Indian government was a lackey of imperialism, and would be overthrown by armed struggle. Party members were ordered to foment strikes and protests to further the cause of the revolution-in-the-making. Bulletins and posters were issued urging the people to rise up and “set fire to the whole of Bengal”, to “destroy the Congress Government”, and move “forward to unprecedented mass struggles. Forward to storm the Congress Bastilles”. The government, naturally, came down hard. Some fifty thousand party members and sympathizers were arrested. These arrests forestalled Ranadive’s plans to crystallize strikes in the major industrial cities of Bombay and Calcutta. It took some more time to restore order in Hyderabad, where a recalcitrant Nizam was refusing to join the Indian Union, egged on by militant Islamists (known as ‘Razakars’), who were making common cause with their local communists. But in September 1948, the Indian army moved into Hyderabad; slowly, over a period of two years, the areas where the communists had been active were brought back under the control of the state. ...when speaking of the failed communist insurrection, they [Indian intellectuals and historians]choose to focus instead on the “massive state repression”. But what was the Indian state supposed to do when faced with this armed challenge to its authority? Sit back and allow Ranadive and his men to move into power in New Delhi? The state reacted the only way it could. And its actions were legitimate; behind them was the support of the broad masses of the people. As it happened, the legitimacy of the state was tested and confirmed in the general elections of 1952, won resoundingly by Nehru’s Congress, and in which the now-reconciled Communist Party of India was also a contestant. [The Telegraph]

The Mindset of Some Educated Indian Muslims.

Afghan film-maker Siddiq Barmak, who shot to fame after making Osama, an avant-garde film in the post-Taliban regime, is going back a tad disappointed from India this time round. After the screening of the film at the Aligarh Muslim University and Jamia Milia Islamia, students raised a barrage of questions against the film-maker's anti-Taliban stand. Osama exposes the extremities of the Taliban regime. "I was completely shocked to find that most of the students were pro-Taliban. They wanted to understand why I made a movie that depicted the Islamic outfit in a negative light. According to them, both America and the Taliban can be placed on the same footing," he said. The film that tells the true story of an Afghan girl brought up as a boy to face the exigencies of the system, exposed the hardships that most girls and women faced during the regime. "It saddens me that the youth in India have such a confined mindset. I don't know where this stems from. All I can think of is that this is the result of lack of experience. I told them that if they ever went through a similar situation, they would definitely think differently," he added.[DNA]

I wonder why these people are wasting their parents hard earned money by getting an university education. They will be better off attending some Islamic Madrassas.

Related Link: Osama - The Film.

A Reality Check for the Congress Party

Here is a reality check for the Congress Party from the Business Standard.

The Congress party must be feeling as if it has been whacked on the head by an iron cricket bat. First, along came the unexpected inflation numbers in January and February and rocked the government back on its heels. These were followed, like Othello by the bear, by the unexpected (and unwelcome?) arrest of the redoubtable Ottavio Quattrocchi, a close friend of the Gandhi family at least until his involvement in the Bofors scandal became known. His arrest was foolishly kept a secret for nearly three weeks by the government. The heavens would not have fallen if it had come clean. Now it looks as if was trying to cover up something in which it had no hand. But these are piffling matters compared to the electoral defeat in two of the three states that have held elections, namely Punjab, Uttarakhand and Manipur. Congress faces may look brave but there is a quake in the hearts as Congressmen and women ask themselves: is what happened to the BJP in 2004 going to happen to us as well? Is there nothing that satisfies voters? Will incumbents always be voted out, no matter what they do? It certainly is beginning to look that way. [...] The immediate consequence of the (mostly expected) defeats in Punjab and Uttarkahand is that the Congress has lost power in all the states in North India, barring Jammu & Kashmir, Haryana, and Himachal Pradesh. Since it has no chance of coming to power in UP in April, it is now certain that it will go into the 2009 Lok Sabha elections with a clear handicap. In the South, it has only Andhra Pradesh and in the West only Maharashtra. It is unpopular in both states. In the East, it is in power in a few states that do not make much of an impact on national politics. In short, Congress party members can be forgiven for looking glum. Apart from everything else, this reduces the party’s voting strength in the electoral college for the presidential elections, due in July, and the Congress may not therefore be able to get its candidate in as the next President. Everything now hangs on Uttar Pradesh. If the party does not improve its performance in that state, heightened political activity is going to dominate the national calendar more than it has done in the past 33 months. Among many other things, the party’s drum-beaters could turn on the “economic reformers” in the government. [B-S]

The Punjab Poll Signals

The Consolidation of the Hindu Vote Bank

The results are in for the latest round of state elections and if they are any indication then the silent consolidation of the Hindu vote bank in favour of the BJP is very much on. With state elections still to be held in UP, Goa, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh and Municipal elections in Delhi, this consolidation is only going to consolidate further.

It started with BJP’s victory in the Uttar Pradesh Municipal elections where the BJP won the majority of the municipalities. This was dismissed as a one-time phenomenon because the BSP didn’t contest and as a result of this the urban upper-castes and Dalits voted for the BJP.

After this, in the Maharashtra Municipal elections, the Shiv Sena-BJP combine was voted back to power in the BMC polls. The BMC results were dismissed as another one-time phenomenon and nothing to be bothered about because Marathi voters had voted according to BMC traditions.

But can the signals emanating from the urban Hindu voters of Punjab who have in fact saved the Akali-BJP combine from sitting in the opposition once again by voting solidly for the BJP be dismissed again as an one-time phenomenon? The outgoing CM of Punjab Capt. Amarinder Singh is completely baffled by the choice of Punjab’s urban voters for whom his govt. as he claims, has done lot.

Why have urban Hindu voters of Punjab rejected the Congress despite the Congress govt doing a lot for them? Are the Congress’s socio-communal policies the reason? Are the Congress-led UPA’s unscientific reservation policies favouring OBCs and their single-point agenda of appeasing the Muslims at any cost silently working in favour of consolidating the Hindu vote bank benefiting the BJP? In my opinion this is the case because logically shouldn’t an affluent Hindu vote-bank vote for the Congress if they had benefited from the economic policies of the state Congress govt.? By rejecting the Congress and voting solidly for the BJP (BJP won 19 of the 23 seats they contested), urban Hindu voters have again unambiguously signalled that they are against the socio-communal policies of the Congress-led UPA govt. at the Center. This is further corroborated by the fact that the Punjab’s rural voters who are mainly Sikhs traditionally voting for the Akalis this time have voted for the Congress in large numbers.

This conclusion can also be credited to some extend apart from price rise and anti-incumbency for the Congress debacle in a fast industrialising Uttarakhand with a solid upper-caste Hindu vote bank that has traditionally backed the BJP from the mid 1980s.

The Congress has used the Muslim minority only as a vote bank by pandering to the whims and fancies of their Mullahs. They knew from the start once you satisfy the Mullah the vote bank was theirs. This is why we saw the Haj subsidy, overturning of the Shah Bano judgment, etc and nothing specific to uplift the community. In 1992 if PVN had pandered to the Mullahs by dismissing the BJP govt headed by Kalyan Singh and thus saved the Babri Masjid, today the Muslim vote bank would have been solidly behind the Congress come what may. It is because of the ability of the Muslim vote bank to vote en bloc, the Congress is trying assiduously to woo them back in the form of reservations, implementation of Sachar report, delaying Afzal’s execution, vacillating on Islamist terror, etc and not because of any newfound love for them. Unfortunately the Congress is yet to understand the Muslim psyche which is never forgive and never forget. If the way the Muslims of Mumbai voted in the BMC polls is any indication - en bloc for the Samajwadi Party candidates – then the Congress is yet to get it.

The next big signal on the consolidation of the urban Hindu votes in BJP’s favour will be the Delhi Municipal elections later this year. With the Congress state govt. committing near harakiri with its Delhi Master Plan, it is only a matter of time before Delhi has a BJP govt.

This madness of the Congress party is paying rich dividends to the BJP. If this continues BJP can have its cake and eat it too. In other words the BJP’s return to power at the center in 2009 or sooner - with a little or no help from friends and no toil - is a foregone conclusion.