IT’S ABOUT TIME MR. PRASHANT BHUSHAN SWUNG INTO ACTION AND SAY SOMETHING IN CONTEMPT OF COURT… OTHERWISE THE CONSTRUCTION WILL GO AHEAD FULL STEAM!
HURRY UP, LUTYENS! SHARPEN YOUR PENS … and GATHER UP YOUR TOOL-KITS!
WHERE ARE YOU , OH KEJRIWAL AND ASUTOSH! WHERE ARE YOU SIBAL AND SURJEWALA! WHERE ARE YOU BARKHA AND KARAN! ONWARD MARCH! CHARGE!
Sudarshan Madabushi
Ps: BTW, Did you notice , this news item appears on Page 8 of today’s The Hindu … Imagine if the High Court had ruled against the Govt.! Then it would’ve grabbed the SCREAMING HEADLINES on the front page, wouldn’t it?!
I have great respect for Coomi Kapoor as a very engaging, off-beat kind of political journalist and news tit-bit gatherer and commentator. I regularly read her extremely readable columns in the Indian Express . And she is a very seasoned and experienced veteran of her trade … what she has to say must always be heard with due respect even though she has a terrific knack of saying her bit with a levity that disguises gravity with brevity .
In the above Op-Ed in today’s Indian Express Coomi writes in her usual style — a columnist style that I say is like Muhammed Ali’s in the boxing ring .. She seems to float around like a harmless butterfly but she stings like a bee.
Coomi severely comes down on PM Modi’s press, media agents and IT-cell nerds who these days she writes behave more like a bunch of mafia goons than skilful constructers of PR policy, strategy and propaganda for the Government.
“Belonging to the old school” Coomi writes, “I, personally, believe that amiability and accommodation, and having broad enough shoulders to take criticism on the chin, make for better media relations than throwing your weight around. A well-argued counter is far more effective than a dictatorial “off with his head’’ approach.”
“Perhaps, this is partly because those now in charge of handling the media, both in the government and the party, were neither journalists to start with nor have any experience dealing with journalists. Most of them are IT and industry experts, with no political sensibilities, who short-sightedly judge success or failure in terms of the numbers in their support on social media or how many did they bully into toeing their line.”
Then Coomi delivers her coup de grace : “Similarly, the BJP party’s IT cell dominates the narrative more than political leaders. IT cell operatives have neither any sense of history nor politics, their rebuttals and counters are harsh and abusive, instantly magnified by their army of trolls.”
After reading Coomi’s sermon, one cannot but feel for her … She is as she herself confesses “old school” … She is filled withnostalgia for the halcyon days of Press aficionados like the suave and soft-spoken Sharda Prasad … who used to treat journalists like her perhapswithgallantryif not chivalry…
But what poor Coomi doesn’tunderstandis that what and how old school journalists wrote and manufactured opinions went out of fashion a long long time ago with the adventof the age of digital and socialmedia platforms … which engage today readers and responders in numbers that areprobable 100X the numbers that ShardaPrasad once had as histarget audience … Coomi doesn’tunderstand that it’s no longer enlightenedcommentary that shapes public opinion today butebullientpolemicsthatare at the heart of effective journalism. The theatre in whichjournalism and media operates today is worldwide, granularly segmented, fiercelycompetitive and ideologically toxic. It’s a dog-fight for readers’ mind-space. It’snota dalliancewithreaders finer instincts anymore.
I have a word of friendlyadvice to Coomi Kapoorwhose fellow alumnus in the “old school” of journalism I’d like tobelieve I am … “Move on, Coomi … Our oldwritingdays are over … it’s no use hearkening those good oldpolitetimes … Dont’ you recollect those words of wisdom in the Rubbaiyyat?
“The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.”
Even if there were no more than only a handful of people like this dharmaatma in the State of Tamizh Naadu , I believe firmly that we can still expect good rains to shower their abundant blessings on this blessed state !
Suddenly, I see that people in all countries have begun turning to God, religion and spirituality to desperately try and seek and find all sorts of explanations for the pandemic that has hit us all and is causing untold havoc in the world and our lives.
“Is there a lesson to be learnt from what is happening?” they ask themselves. “Is it a sign from God that we must heed to reform ourselves? Is the virus in some mysterious sort way a Messenger of God? “
To attribute divine cause or agency for the deadly Wuhan virus attack today is, in my opinion, nothing but the human world unfairly trying to scapegoat the Almighty for the tragedy we brought upon ourselves through our own misdeeds.
The scientific evidence emerging from US CDC and WHO researchers is slowly pointing to the cause of the virus outbreak being “accidental escape of man-made pathogens from a laboratory in Wuhan, China”.
Scientists from US and China it seems were collaborating there on a type of virological research that was scientifically exciting perhaps but ethically very dangerous. Trying to “weaponise” animal viruses without adequate safety controls in a laboratory is akin to developing nuclear weapons in a reactor with no regulatory oversight protocols at all in place .
This is not the first time Scientists have let mankind down … We all know how dangerous and secretive scientific experiments back in the 1930s in both USA and Europe ended up producing devastating atomic bombs . … which to this day many countries of the world are stockpiling as WMD (weapons of mass destruction) and which are grave and present danger and a constant existential threat to all living beings on this planet.
More than 1 million innocent citizens who died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the victims of “rogue” scientific research in weapons-grade nuclear fusion. Today close to 3 million people have died from the Wuhan Covid virus — and they are the poor innocent victims of “rogue” scientific research into weapons-grade virology too.
Humanity must learn to take full responsibility for its own crimes and guilt. There is no point invoking the name of God here and conveniently passing on the buck to him. We need no messages from God if only we knew how to heed the wisdom of our own.
Mankind must learn the important lesson the poet Robert Browning’s lines taught us: that if all must be right with us in the world then, firstly, we must know how to leave God remain alone in his heavens … undisturbed and unperturbed…
A few days ago, the map of India below was forwarded to me on a WhatsApp Group forum. It depicts the size of populations in states of India as compared to those of whole other nations in the world. It was a very interesting perspective that made me appreciate the real dimensions of the humongous Covid problem that we in our country have to deal with.
I re-forwarded the map of India to a good friend of mine via email just so we could both share and exchange views on the matter.
Yesterday, my good friend sent me an email in response which I thought was no doubt very well, sincerely and genuinely intentioned … But then I thought it was also typically reflective of the national character of a good section of the entire country these days that goes about revelling in unbridled and at times unreasonable criticism of the Government of India headed by Narendra Modi .
I reproduce below in full the email I received from my friend (name will not be disclosed, of course) :
QUOTE:
“These numbers are significant and convey the size of the issue we are confronting. But it is small comfort to the millions who have fallen prey to the disease and another million (may be 2) more who have died.
Miserable infrastructure, repeated low investment in Health over the past 6 decades, absence of trained medical personnel, wrong set of priorities have resulted in India after 55 years reverting to the PL 480 days – as the world scoffed then of getting food from aboard for ‘Ship to Mouth’ transfer.
Today it is Oxygen from ‘Airplane to Nose’. Really disturbing and saddening. We handled the first wave so well. Lockdown, precautions, awareness, medication, doctors/nurses on call. The world applauded.
Then – my favourite theme – arrogance and hubris took over. We proclaimed victory after our first innings. The opponent had yet to bat. Then there was the second innings still to be played. With that superior attitude came complacency, slackening of effort, export of vaccines, no preparation for the 2nd wave which the Europeans and Americans warned was inevitable for India. We dismissed them. Indians we said have an inbuilt immunity. Election rallies and religious gatherings got priority. Vaccines approved outside were not cleared. Oxygen and Ventilators were not ordered. Some COVID facilities were dismantled.
The innocent, gullible people of India trusting their Leaders got ‘suckered & punched’. The stories of death from all over the country are tragic and heart rending. Women shouting for Oxygen as the men in front of them (husbands, fathers, brothers, sons) take their last breath. 70 years old couples turned away from the vaccination centre after a wait of 3 hours as the vaccine stock was over.
The CM’s of Maharashtra, Kerala, Karnataka, Tamilnadu, Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Jharkhand, Andhra, Nagaland, Manipur, Tripura, Meghalaya have fared well. Despite handicaps and poor support from the Centre they did the best. In Bombay Udhav Thackrey talks on TV at least twice, thrice a month.
But thundering silence from Delhi. Nothing from the Central, powerful leadership. In Management we were repeatedly taught there is no such thing as ‘over communication’. Talk, message, address, email, post – but show your face, raise your profile. In this case display your concern, empathy, compassion (not pity and sympathy). Explain and elaborate. Do a diagnosis and equally a prognosis.
I am saying all this as the majority of us had put our belief in Modi and BJP in 2014 and 2019. This is not what we expected.
Outside one of the barracks in the Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland there is an inscription by a visiting Israel President. It says: ‘Only one question repeatedly bothers me – Why?’
Indians are asking the same question today.”
UNQUOTE
My response to my friend was written ans sent today. It was a bit indignant, rhetorical and rather flippant but I still thought I did put my main point across to him that all we Indians suffer from a chronic pathological psychic condition called “Julie Andrews SuperNanny syndrome” . And here below is reproduced my entire email in reply to him:
QUOTE:
You know we Indians have a “I want my nanny to hold me” syndrome. We expect our elected governments to be our constant “nanny” who will be around always to clean up the shit that we the people are ever going around dropping … and when the nanny doesn’t do a good job of cleaning our bottoms, changing our diaper and keeping the stink out , who do we blame ? The government of course !
We all thought back in 2014 that since we had voted in the Great Narendra Modi … presto, all our problems will get sorted out! Bad judgment… even worse, unrealistic expectations and even what is worse than that is our “nanny syndrome” which continues to keep deluding us all that a government such as Modi’s with the enormous political capital it earned at the hustings will at the end turn out to be the ideal government … “a government of the people, by the people, for the people… “! The problem is no government in the world ever did or ever will live up to that kind of Ideal ! You cannot expect the ordinary “aayaah” or “Tai” you hire at home to help you groom and bring up your kid and to serve you as though she was some “super-nanny” like Julie Andrews in the “Sound of Music”! Just as your child is your responsibility , the nation is really the responsibility of all its citizens .. and the government is merely their “ayaah” … She can help with the diaper of course but she can’t help the mess and the stink your child is constantly causing …
We Indians as a people do not yet understand and appreciate what is meant by the unwritten terms of the wide but fine range of mutual obligations that are set out in what is called the “Social Contract” between a people and their elected government.
We are all so ready and keen to clamour and climb up today to the highest rooftops if not moral horsebacks to scream about the “disastrous” management of the Covid crisis by the Government … But how many politicians , national and in the states , have had the raw guts or the gumption to catalogue to the people themselves the whole list of lapses, transgressions and sheer non-cooperation that they themselves have been guilty of throughout this Covid crises?
No one forced people to flock to political rallies, did they ? No one forced people to flock to the Kumbh Mela; how many times were people requested to comply with Covid appropriate public behaviour? How many times did the Government beg citizens to get vaccinated when it was first rolled out? How often did the government warn citizens not to self medicate themselves ?
Does anyone today holding leadership positions in politics, the media or society have the stature .. and the balls… to tell the people that they themselves are responsible to a very large extent for the crisis they have brought upon themselves ?
Mahatma Gandhi had that kind of stature … he could boldly and caustically call out his followers and roundly tick them off whenever he saw they were out of line .. that they lacked discipline and moral sense …
Is there such a Gandhi amongst us today who can put up a mirror to the peoples and tell them how ugly they all look ?
But no … on the other hand … sorry, We are Indians.. we have our god-given rights. So we will only continue being busy doing our own godammed things exactly the way we wish or we are used to … and we will do so all in the name of the great Constitutional gospel called “my fundamental rights” … !
In other words, my dear countrymen, we the People of India will let our baby stew in its own shit and then when the stink hits us we will exercise our right to yell at and castigate the super-nanny we hired in 2014 .. called the Modi government … !
At my age and situation in life , this is exactly how I too feel !
But I never could have expressed myself as eloquently as this Brazilian poet in his poem “My Soul has a Hat” ! I take my own hat off to this poet’s thoughts! 👍✅👏👏👏🙏
PS: And please note that the poem ends with a line that says we have 2 lives and the second begins when you realise you have only one ☝️. I am a Vedic Brahmin … and I am “twice born” … a “Dwija” with 2 lives …. and that’s why perhaps I believe I understand the significance the poet’s mind seeks to convey !🤗🙏
———-*******———-
Poem by Mario de Andrade (San Paolo 1893-1945) Poet, novelist, essayist and musicologist. One of the founders of Brazilian modernism.
I counted my years and realized that I have less time to live by, than I have lived so far.
I feel like a child who won a pack of candies: at first, he ate them with pleasure but when he realized that there was little left, he began to taste them intensely.
I no longer have the patience to stand absurd people who, despite their chronological age, have not grown up.
My time is too short: I want the essence; my spirit is in a hurry. I do not have much candy in the package anymore.
I want to live next to humans, very realistic people who know how to laugh at their mistakes and who are not inflated by their own triumphs and who take responsibility for their actions. In this way, human dignity is defended and we live in truth and honesty.
It is the essentials that make life useful.
I want to surround myself with people who know how to touch the hearts of those whom hard strokes of life have learned to grow with sweet touches of the soul.
Yes, I’m in a hurry. I’m in a hurry to live with the intensity that only maturity can give.
I do not intend to waste any of the remaining desserts. I am sure they will be exquisite, much more than those eaten so far.
My goal is to reach the end satisfied and at peace with my loved ones and my conscience.
We have two lives and the second begins when you realize you only have one.
**************
Everything about the poem above I wrote I now remember was written by me in a rather pensive moment LAST YEAR … same day today !
Today I’m still alive after a year in a world that got hit and devastated by a pandemic …
Nearly 2.5 million have perished …
I feel I’ve had now a 3rd life to lead well and wisely …
The 2 lives I’ve enjoyed so far seem like such insufficient, incomplete, inept preparation..
This is pretty devastating scientific circumstantial evidence to support the conclusion that the Wuhan virus was man made and it did escape from a virology Laboratory there … 😱
The question is what is the “international community” going to do about it?
Well, yesterday President Joe Biden had asked another committee of scientific experts to come up with a more conclusive report on the matter in 90 days !
That’s about all !
The same “international community”, by the way, back in 2003, on insufficient evidence that turned out to be untrue… and, in fact, on mere suspicion .. that Saddam Hussain possessed “weapons of mass destruction” got the UNSC and UNGA to pass a Resolution declaring a war on Iraq which eventually led to regime change and to a severe aftermath of ensuing turmoil in that country and the entire region. The Resolution was passed in fact when an Expert Committee of the UN’s watchdog IAEA under Dr Hans Blix reported that it’s investigation into the suspected nuclear facilities in Iraq did not seem to suggest that they were destructive.
The suspicion of this new viral “weapon of mass destruction” called the “Wuhan Virus of China” does not however for some reason today quite fall in the same category as the one that was suspected to be possessed by Iraq’s Saddam Hussein. The WHO team that went to China earlier this year to investigate the causes of the outbreak of the virus in its report said pretty much that the “laboratory escape” theory can be ruled out.
The “international community” obviously has two different standards for dealing with countries suspected of possessing or proliferating “weapons of mass destruction”. There is one standard that was used for Iraq . There is another different one altogether to deal with China.
The Wuhan Virus has now caused c. 1.5 million deaths in the world . Saddam Hussain’s “weapons of mass destruction” was known to have caused no death before the war except about the 3000+odd lives that were sadly lost in the 9/11 Twin Tower bombing in 2001 the blame for which somehow the “international committee” laid at the doorstep of Saddam Hussain of Iraq.
Iraq deserved to be bombed on mere suspicion of possessing WMD. China deserves only one more expert committee to further investigate into suspicions.
And the irony of it all is that America regards itself as an exceptional country in the world … the leader of the free world!
🙄😏
I am no big celebrity of any sort in either the Facebook or Twitter worlds … I have only 175 “followers” on my FB page here. But I do very much respect and value all 175 of you who are out there as my friends and so here is what I must tell you in advance:
1. I have read the laws and regulations of India applicable to Social Media platforms like Twitter and Facebook.
2. I find them all quite reasonable. Nothing in them is oppressive or even vaguely close to the definition of any violation of the right to “free speech”.
3. I therefore cannot really understand what, how or why these multinational social-media companies earning multibillion revenues in India find it so difficult to comply with our laws.
4. Since the laws are not oppressive at all, the raging debate going on in the public about any govt. punitive action that might be taken against these social media companies should be construed as an “assault” on the fundamental right to “freedom of speech” in a democratic society such as ours is nothing but false narrative. I am convinced it’s pure sophisticated drivel put out by pseudo-democrats and closet-anarchists.
5. So, dear friends, I am telling you now that if Facebook fails to comply with India Laws, then I shall forthwith terminate my account and quit Facebook. I do not wish to patronise a social media platform which under Indian Laws ought to be held accountable as a serial offender who wilfully disrespects my country’s laws.
So, my friends, those of you who might wish to continue to “follow” me out of mutual respect and goodwill we maintain for each other, and to engage with me and my views and opinions on a variety of subjects, you may please log on to my own Website below:
unknownsrivaishnava.wordpress.com
You can “follow” me on my website, freely post your own messages and we can carry on our dialogues or discussions there.
This is for your kind information.
Looking forward to seeing you all elsewhere than on Facebook which by all accounts looks like it is NOT going to respect the laws of our land.
In this short Video-clip in Tamil an “Ubaya Vedantin” (U.Ve) scholar has so clearly and expansively explained why a true Sri Vaishnava can never be a language chauvinist… why he holds in equally high esteem both the Sanskrit and Tamizh languages since both are celebrated in our “sampradaayam” as being the verbalised forms of Godhood… “Deva bhaashai” or “mozhi”.
Sri Vaishnavas call themselves “Sri ubaya vedaantins” (“U.Ve.”) I.e. those who know that the best way to get enlightened by and through the verities of Vedanta is to study it in 2 (ubaya) languages … Sanskrit and Tamizh.
Out of 4 principal Vedantic texts that all Sri Vaishnavas therefore are enjoined to study diligently in life and comprehend thoroughly, 2 are in Sanskrit language ( Upanishads and Bhagavath Gita) and 2 are in Tamizh language (Tiuvoimozhi) and it’s Commentary (Bhaashya) called “Bhagavath-Vishayam” (which is in fact written in a beautiful blend of both Tamizh and Sanskrit called “Mani-pravaalam”).
The scriptural authority for upholding the tradition of Ubaya Vedantins is found principally in the clear affirmations in the works of two towering ‘acharyas’ of the Sri Vaishnava “sampradaaya” … Thirumangai Azhwaar and Swami Vedanta Desikan. The scholar in this video has taken the pains to refer us to those quotations of the two Acharyas.
If people of TamilNadu and elsewhere in the country truly understood the Ubaya Vedanta tradition with an open and unprejudiced mind, they would never suspect any Sri Vaishnavan of any sectarian denomination to be any kind of linguistic chauvinist with any sort of prejudice against either Sanskrit or Tamizh.
The tradition of Ubaya Vedanta in fact explodes the myth that in Tamil Nadu there was or there is any native or irreconcilable conflict or antipathy between Sanskrit-speaking and Tamil speaking communities and that certain castes or classes of society here in this State are inimical to the growth and development of either of the languages.
IF AN ORDINARY LAY PERSON ON THE STREET ASKS YOU TO EXPLAIN WHAT ON EARTH ARE GOVERNMENTS AND CENTRAL BANKS OF THE WORLD REALLY AIMING TO DO BY GIVING AWAY SUCH MASSIVE DOLES AND LOANS ALMOST FREE TO BUSINESSES, MSMEs, CORPORATES AND INDIVIDUALS ALL ACROSS THE BOARD …. WELL… YOU MIGHT FIND THE LITTLE STORY BELOW TO BE A VERY USEFUL AND EFFECTIVE ILLUSTRATION.
