How Aatish Taseer helps Modi- 'the willful provincial'.

Aatish Tasser- the illegitimate son of a slain Pakistani politician & an Indian journalist once quite close to Rajiv and Sonia Gandhi- writes in Time magazine-

Of the great democracies to fall to populism, India was the first. 

India is nothing like any other 'great democracy'. It is very poor. It has a caste system such that 'people don't cast their vote, they vote their caste'.  It also displays dynasticism on an unparalleled scale.  Yet, according to Aatish, its political dynamics are similar to that of America. Is he utterly mad?

There has long been a trope about 'democracies falling to populism'. But Putin came to power in 2000, Erdogan in 2003, Orban & Zeman first became Prime Ministers in 1998 while, for the Kaczynskis, it was 2005.

Aatish, however, has a different conception of chronology according to which 2014 comes before 1998- when Atal became India's P.M.

In 2014, Narendra Modi, then the longtime chief minister of the western state of Gujarat and leader of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), was elected to power by the greatest mandate the country had seen in 30 years. India until then had been ruled primarily by one party–the Congress, the party of Indira Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru–for 54 of the 67 years that the country had been free.

This is misleading. Indira's Congress was not the party her father had belonged to. She split it to create her own dynastic vehicle. Her son took over from her as Prime Minister. Her grandson could have taken over prior to the 2014 election. He refused to step up to the plate. This gave Modi a walk-over not because he was a 'populist' but because he was considered not just a safe pair of hands- but the only clean pair of hands that might actually get things done.

Modi was popular and his campaigning was highly professional. But, he wasn't populist. The Aam Aadmi Party was populist. It attacked African immigrants in a brazen attempt to gain popularity by pandering to the most ignorant and despicable type of popular prejudice. But its main plank- fighting corruption- was one which Modi had already made his own. Still, the Aam Aadmi Party, outfoxed the BJP to take Delhi from Congress despite a big 'Modi wave'.

Now, India is voting to determine if Modi and the BJP will continue to control its destiny. It is a massive seven-phase exercise spread over 5½ weeks in which the largest electorate on earth–some 900 million–goes to the polls. To understand the deeper promptings of this enormous expression of franchise–not just the politics, but the underlying cultural fissures–we need to go back to the first season of the Modi story.

No we don't. Elections happen every 5 years as required by Law. The only 'deeper promptings' involved have to do with abiding by the Indian Constitution.

In any case, Aatish knows nothing about the 'first season of the Modi story'. Few of his generation and background have any inkling of it. It has to do with the secular decline in life-chances for 'Midnight's children'. Jobs were scarce and rationed on the basis of academic credentials. This was not something new. What was new was that real wages were falling. This was when the 'rabble' revolted. But Indira had been an early adopter of the new populism. Her opponents were slower off the mark. Still, the 'Navnirman Andolan' campaign in Gujarat- which would have been Modi's introduction to mass politics- succeeded. Indira responded by declaring a state of Emergency. It was during this period that the R.S.S (which Modi had joined) became respectable. However, the Socialists were suspicious of it because it appeared 'Fascist'. This was the official reason why the Janata coalition split permitting Indira to win back power. Her assassination caused a massive sympathy wave for Congress which wiped out RSS backed candidates. However, the country was now moving in a 'neo-liberal' direction. Rajiv Gandhi sought to steal the clothes of the Hindu Right by opening the Babri Masjid for Hindu worship. His rival, V.P Singh, sought to steal the clothes of the Caste based parties by introducing reservations for 'Backward Castes'. Both initiatives backfired. Power moved away from the Center to the States. Unlike China, India was not investing in infrastructure to increase inter-state commerce. The result was that some States could progress more quickly by attracting foreign investment and gaining export markets. Modi was one of the most successful Chief Ministers in this respect. Being fluent in Hindi, he could dream of getting elected from U.P (the largest state) and thus gain legitimacy as Prime Minister. His slick campaign, which was technocratic not populist, gave him a healthy majority at the Center. Somewhat surprisingly, he turned out to be an effective diplomat and international statesman. Because he promoted on the basis of ability, his Cabinet gained a reputation for professionalism and, equally important, financial probity. Still, Modi was not able to deliver on his promise of a Manufacturing based jobs bonanza. The Agricultural crisis worsened. This election features populist pledges of cash transfers to give a vast semi-agricultural class a soft landing.

It is only then that we can see why the advent of Modi is at once an inevitability and a calamity for India.

Modi's advent was neither inevitable nor calamitous. It was the result of a decision made by Sonia Gandhi.

Had Rahul taken over the top job in 2013 and memorized some speeches and gone on the stump, Congress wouldn't have done so badly in the State Elections at the end of the year. Modi would still have thrown his hat into the ring because he'd looked shaky in 2012 and had found that the Gujarati voter liked his squaring up to New Delhi. But Modi wouldn't be the first or last Chief Minister to project himself as a possible P.M simply as a matter of Regional pride or 'asmita'. Mamta does it. Jayalalitha did it, though neither would actually trade their fiefdom for being an 'anguli chaap' roi faineant in New Delhi.
The BJP wouldn't have risked putting up Modi if Rahul was in the running.  Advani was very old and coalition partners would prefer having him as the figurehead.

Thus the only thing which made Modi 'inevitable' was something no one expected- viz. that Rahul wouldn't step up to the plate. Yet Manmohan was having to show himself to be utterly decrepit so as to appease the Congress rank and file who were impatient for the young Prince to ascend the Throne and rejuvenate the Party. Why didn't Rahul take charge of the Commonwealth Games the way his Dad had taken charge of the Asian Games? Why hadn't he brusquely shouldered Manmohan aside? The answer he gave was that his Mummy was fearful of another assassination which might give Congress a 'sympathy wave' and thus another spell in office. After that, there would be Priyanka and then her kids. Now, he is telling another story- viz. that he'd given his word to Manmohan Singh that he'd stay out of his way. This is silly. Manmohan would have been stronger if Rahul had been in the Cabinet. Indeed, he needn't have looked quite so decrepit.

The truth is, Modi was the only candidate for the top job in 2014. Congress didn't release funds to fight the elections in a proper manner. It seemed that everybody had decided that Modi was needed to restore prosperity. Once things were back on an even keel, the various kleptocratic dynastic parties could move in for the kill.

The country offers a unique glimpse into both the validity and the fantasy of populism.

Nonsense! Indian politics offers a unique glimpse into the manner in which the relative importance of different castes changes over time. It can't tell us anything about countries where there is no caste system.

It forces us to reckon with how in India, as well as in societies as far apart as Turkey and Brazil, Britain and the U.S., populism has given voice to a sense of grievance among majorities that is too widespread to be ignored, while at the same time bringing into being a world that is neither more just, nor more appealing.

What is this shit? The Nehru-Gandhi dynasty were Hindi speaking Brahmans at a time when Hindi speakers were the largest single linguistic community and Brahmans and Kayasths dominated the Congress Party. Indira's 'Remove Poverty' campaign was populist. It changed the political landscape. 'Educationally Backward' agricultural castes used the even more populist mass movement of J.P Narayan as a vehicle to class power. Mrs. Gandhi responded by declaring a state of Emergency and jailing her opponents. However, she permitted free elections believing she would win. The Janata campaign of '77 was highly populist. Indira lost her seat to a crazy ex-wrestler named Raj Narain. In '78, there was demonetization. The fundamental right to property was eliminated from the Constitution.

Though personal ambition was the motivator, the Janata coalition split up on wholly populist lines. The BJP, which was nationalistic rather than caste based, emerged as the most professional looking outfit. Still, in the mid Nineties, Jyoti Basu- the Communist Chief Minister of West Bengal- was offered the Prime Minister's job in a coalition. He wanted to take it but his own politburo blocked him. India would have preferred a Chinese style Communist party managing the transition to an export based economy. But the gerontocratic CPM would not sacrifice its ideological purity for the sake of taking power at the Center and becoming a truly National party.

Ultimately, the BJP did get its chance at running the country in '98, despite the threat it posed to caste based parties. Its performance was quite good and so it became the official rival to Congress at the Center. The long political suicide of the Left meant that both Congress and the BJP would dominate any future coalitions that were formed. Still, Congress was the better brand and if Rahul hadn't turned out to be a bit of a moon calf, it would remain the default National party. Still, if he gets assassinated and Priyanka steps up the BJP will be running scared. That is why it makes sense for people of Taseer's class to hedge their bets and write stupid articles like this. After all, sooner or later, Modi will fall because the monsoons fail or the price of onions goes up too much or he has a stroke or gives one too many puerile interviews to the likes of Akshay Kumar and ends up a laughing stock.

But all the various ways in which Modi's star might fade have nothing to do with either populism or authoritarianism.

The story starts at independence. In 1947, British India was split in two. Pakistan was founded as a homeland for Indian Muslims. But India, under the leadership of its Cambridge-educated Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, chose not to be symmetrically Hindu.

Nonsense! Muslims were crushed. Only Congress 'show ponies' held token appointments. Had the outcome of the '65 War been unfavourable, most wealthier Muslims would have been pushed out- like the father in 'Midnight's Children'- their Bank accounts would have been frozen and their properties seized under the Enemy Property Act. 

If more Hindus could read Urdu, they would find heart rending accounts of the suffering of Muslim families in the Fifties and Sixties. This would remove the absurd idea that Muslims had ever been pampered. I may mention that till the work of V.N Rai I.P.S was published, many Hindus genuinely believed that Muslims were the gainers from communal riots. Once proper research by this senior Police officer was published, Hindus recognized their error. Ironically, it benefited Modi who had suppressed such disturbances with a heavy hand and been quick to lift the curfew which, historically, has disproportionately penalized Muslims.

Hindus may have their faults but they want better and safer livelihoods. For this to happen, the Muslims have to be allowed to rise by their own efforts. Periodic riots may help the bootlegger, the land-shark and the extortionist. It is fatal to the Muslim mercantile class which is hard working, sober, entrepreneurial and keen on STEM subject education.

Sadly, members of this class have felt they have to keep silent. Consider the example of somewhat bumptious Zafar Sareshwala.  At one stage he wanted to prosecute Modi. He changed his mind once he saw Modi was serious about suppressing riots. Then, he saw how the established, Mumbai based, Muslim mercantile elites did things. It is noteworthy that not one of their hotels was touched during the post Godhra riots. But they kept quiet about it.

Sareshwala took a different tack and paid the price. No doubt, he may change his mind if other parties up their game and offer Muslims a better deal. That is how politics works. However, long run, young Muslim politicians must put themselves forward as potential CMs and even PMs- not as the client of some particular Dynasty. That will give voters the assurance that they will actually deliver.

Sadly, Nehruvian socialism did not consider entrepreneurship a resource for developing the country. Yet, Islam is a Religion highly favorable to 'Tijarat'- commercial enterprise. Nehru considered Muslims to be backward and feudal in their thinking. Thus they went to the back of the queue. And in Socialist India, only queues abounded.

The country had a substantial Muslim population (then around 35 million, now more than 172 million), and the ideology Nehru bequeathed to the newly independent nation was secularism.

Jinnah bequeathed the same ideology to Pakistan. The truth is Ayub Khan's regime was more secular than anything to be found in India. You could get beef and pork and Johnny Walker whiskey at reasonable prices.  Ahmadiyas occupied high positions. That changed with the advent of Democracy.

This secularism was more than merely a separation between religion and state; in India, it means the equal treatment of all religions by the state, although to many of its critics, that could translate into Orwell’s maxim of some being more equal than others.

This is sheer garbage. There is a directive principle in the Constitution urging the State to protect cows. Guess which religion thinks cows are holy? Furthermore, being Muslim was ab ovo a bar to gaining access to affirmative action irrespective of caste status.

No doubt, Muslims in Kerala and Tamil Nadu didn't suffer any great reverse but that is because they never espoused separatism. There is still a Muslim League party in the Kerala. There is no such thing in the North. Bengal, too, is a separate case. Linguistic nationalism may have trumped Confessional separatism

Indian Muslims were allowed to keep Shari’a-based family law, while Hindus were subject to the law of the land.

However, Hindu customary law took precedence over statute law.  Furthermore, at precisely this time, the Hindu Undivided Family (HUF) was given more favorable treatment with only Hindu males given the right to be 'karta' of more than one HUF. Mohammad Ali Jinnah had been warning, since 1912, that Hindu law was more favorable for wealth accumulation. However, customarily, Jinnah's own sect enjoyed the benefit of being covered under Hindu inheritance Law. After Independence, however, only Hindus- legally defined as someone who was neither Muslim nor Christian- could gain this benefit which actually grew more valuable after Indira's assault on the managing agency system.

No doubt, Hindus would whine about how they were being victimized while Minorities were pampered. However, the moment any tax or inheritance issue arose, these guys would see that being Hindu was highly beneficial. Unlike Muslims or Christians, no Hindu finds himself disadvantaged if he makes a mock conversion to Islam so as to indulge in polygamy. The film actor, Dharmendra did that so as to marry Hema Malini and both got elected on BJP tickets.

Arcane practices–such as the man’s right to divorce a woman by repudiating her three times and paying a minuscule compensation–were allowed for Indian Muslims, while Hindus were bound by reformed family law and often found their places of worship taken over by the Indian state. (Modi made the so-called Triple Talaq instant divorce a punishable offense through an executive order in 2018.)

Hindus control the State. They use it to improve their life-chances. In a cynical manner, they will permit Muslims to hobble themselves with obsolete customs and then turn around and say 'Muslims are pampered.'

Consider the Hajj subsidy. It was introduced because devaluation had lowered the value of the money people had saved to go on pilgrimage. This was perfectly reasonable. Indians like having a Haji in their neighborhood. However, it was continued as a way of giving Air India a profit. As Syed Shahabuddin pointed out, it violated Islamic law- pilgrims must use only their own resources- but nobody cared about Islam. Everybody would have got a better deal if Air India's monopoly was broken. This supposed sop to the Muslims was actually a case of Establishment self dealing.

Why do Indian elites keep on pretending Muslims are 'educationally backward' and would probably bite their own heads off but for the kindness of a paternalistic Sarkar? Who do they think they are fooling?

Congress hypocrisy in this regard stinks to high Heaven. Rajiv Gandhi betrayed Muslims like Arif Mohammad Khan to deny alimony to Muslim women. Modi, very cleverly, has gone in the opposite direction and garnered a few Muslim votes. It remains to be seen whether Modi will take action on Female Genital Mutilation which affects the wealthy Bohra community with whom he is particularly cozy.

Nehru’s political heirs, who ruled India for the great majority of those post-independence years, established a feudal dynasty, while outwardly proclaiming democratic norms and principles. India, under their rule, was clubbish, anglicized and fearful of the rabble at the gates.

Aatish does not tell his American audience, that Indira Gandhi- Nehru's only child- had two sons both of whom died young. One daughter-in-law headed Congress. The other and her only child- a son- joined the BJP. Thus the dynasty is split equally between the two 'national' parties.

Aatish is too young to know this, but Indira wasn't re-elected by clubbish anglicized cunts. It was the peasant rabble who put her back in power and then gave Rajiv a huge 'sympathy' vote.

Aatish should know that rabbles vote for patricians like Naveen Patnaik- who was close to Aatish's mother- even if they aren't fluent in their own mother tongue. Indeed, Naveen's difficulties in this respect endear him to the people who hope that this means he won't be able to understand the gossip of intriguers.

By contrast, the rabble are suspicious of great orators like Atal precisely because is their own language that is being spoken in an elitist manner.

Modi, very cleverly, has adopted a sonorous but not Brahminical type of Hindi which is meant to appeal to AJGAR castes. At the same time he is projected as an OBC. It remains to be seen if Brahmans will back him this time. After all, Rahul has come out of the closet as a sacred thread wearing Shaivite.

It remains a puzzle as to why Congress under Sonia managed to get an anti-Hindu tag. Perhaps party members were unconsciously influenced by the theory that Sonia's children were Catholic and the fact that her main adviser appeared to be Ahmed Patel. It was also true that she consulted Romila Thapar- which didn't help any. However, the KHAM strategy had already failed. It was ludicrous to see Congress put up an RSS man- Modi's old mentor- as their candidate for the C.M position in Gujarat. Quite naturally, Muslims didn't trust Congress and then their votes got split even further between various caste based parties all promising equality and delivering only pogroms.

In May 2014 those gates were breached when the BJP, under Modi, won 282 of the 543 available seats in Parliament, reducing the Congress to 44 seats, a number so small that India’s oldest party no longer even had the right to lead the opposition.

By 2014, the anglicized elite were completely disillusioned with Rahul the moon-calf. Mani Shankar Aiyyar- presumably a drunkard- had shat the bed too often and suddenly one remembered he wasn't really posh. His dad was a C.A and his mom taught school. Shashi Tharoor, too, was a disappointment. His marriage was a mistake. 'Sweat equity' forsooth! How declasse! St. Stephanians were ersatz gentlemen. Their accents rang of but pinchbeck metal.

Meanwhile, the genuinely patrician Tatas, chased out of Singur by Mamta, were forced to testify that Modi was a proper Gujerati sajjan. That was what really counted.

 The world does not want to hear fake Oxford accents from brown people. It wants a touch of Bollywood glitz and a sonorous, but simple, message in 'Globish'. Modi delivered this and Obama looked jealous. Having previously squandered his political capital, the American President left India, warning of Religious intolerance, only to go and bend the knee to the Saudi Monarchy. He returned a couple of years later to bleat like a gelding. Modi now refers to him familiarly as an admirer who affectionately asks him to sleep more. A fitting epitaph on the 'woke' generation.

Populists come in two stripes: those who are of the people they represent (Erdogan in Turkey, Bolsonaro in Brazil), and those who are merely exploiting the passions of those they are not actually part of (the champagne neo-fascists: the Brexiteers, Donald Trump, Imran Khan in Pakistan).

All representatives come in two stripes- those who are of the people they represent and those who aren't. Speaking generally, elected representatives have to belong to the people they represent. Obama wasn't actually Kenyan. He was born in Hawaii. Imran Khan is actually Pakistani- just as much so as any Bhutto or Sharif. Bolsonaro is as Brazilian as Lula. Trump is as American as Biden. Farage is as British as Cameron. Why is this cretin pretending otherwise?

Narendra Modi belongs very firmly to the first camp. He is the son of a tea seller, and his election was nothing short of a class revolt at the ballot box.

Utter shit! India has a Westminster type system. There is no American style election. People voted for good governance. Presenting Modi as the son of honest people of the 'oil-presser' caste was part of a wider narrative- focusing on his achievements as C.M of Gujarat- which showed Modi understood the problems of ordinary Indians and thus was eager to redress them. This was not a 'class revolt' at all. Rich Indians also voted for Modi because the alternative was administrative paralysis.

It exposed what American historian Anne Applebaum has described as “unresolvable divisions between people who had previously not known that they disagreed with one another.”

Anne Applebaum married a Polish politician and took Polish citizenship. She is speaking about Polish politics which has zero similarity with Indian politics. Why is this stupid cretin quoting her? Does he really think that Congress-wallahs and Jan Sangh types previously did not know they disagreed with each other? It may be that this idiot did not know that when his Mummy went to his Daddy's hotel room, neither knew they belonged to different religions and countries. Thus this poor bastard was only made illegitimate after the fact by some 'class revolt' or other such calamity.

There had, of course, been political differences before, but what Modi’s election revealed was a cultural chasm. It was no longer about left, or right, but something more fundamental.

A cultural chasm? Does Aatish really believe there was only elite politics in India prior to Modi? Does he think Mayawati went to Oxford while Mulayam Singh graduated from Cambridge? Lalu Prasad is clearly an  Old Etonian. The film 'Legally Blonde' is based on Mamta Di's time at Harvard Law.

The nation’s most basic norms, such as the character of the Indian state, its founding fathers, the place of minorities and its institutions, from universities to corporate houses to the media, were shown to be severely distrusted.

That was the Communist ideology which denied India had genuinely become independent.

The cherished achievements of independent India–secularism, liberalism, a free press–came to be seen in the eyes of many as part of a grand conspiracy in which a deracinated Hindu elite, in cahoots with minorities from the monotheistic faiths, such as Christianity and Islam, maintained its dominion over India’s Hindu majority.

Indira wasn't secular. She was deeply religious. Foreign Secretary Rasgotra organized an conference of occultists for her. Kathleen Raine, has written a book expressing her puzzlement at being invited to such an odd event. Atal, who ate meat and drank wine, and the casteless Sindhi, Advani, were much more secular than the niyogi Brahman Narasimha Rao who consulted charlatans like Chandraswami who cheated people as different as Kenneth Kaunda and Lonrho's Tiny Rowland.

No doubt, there were some drawing rooms where Aatish's mother's friends would express their disgust at the way the country was going to the dogs. But this has always happened. The fact of the matter is that neither Atal nor Modi has tried to turn India into a theocracy. Neither has muzzled the press nor opposed liberal measures- e.g. decriminalizing homosexuality.

A few people may pretend otherwise- but pretense is all it is.

It must be said, however, that Manmohan Singh blundered badly by saying that henceforth Muslims would be given priority. Nobody really believed any Muslim would get anything, but what the Administration was doing was giving itself an alibi so as not to do anything for poorer Hindus. This is what creates distrust of elites. Nobody believes they really have bleeding hearts. Thus their vaunted  concern for poor foreigners is understood to mean a determination to impoverish the majority of their own people.

Modi’s victory was an expression of that distrust. He attacked once unassailable founding fathers, such as Nehru,

Who was mercilessly attacked by Lohia - the inspiration behind the caste based Samajvadi parties- who, thanks to his German Doctorate, was able to see that 'Angrezi boli'- English speech- is more fatal than 'Angrezi goli'- the bullets of the Red Coats. However, it is noticeable that Mulayam Singh Yadav's commitment to 'Angrezi hatao'- remove English- did not stop him sending his son Akhilesh to Australia for higher studies. This is because aboriginal Australians are looking like Madrasees isn't it? Must be those Australians are all talking Tamil only when they are amongst themselves. Just to show off, they speak a little English when they come for Cricket test match. Luckily, Mulayamji was not taken in. That is the only reason he sent Akhilesh to Australia. It was so he could jabber with those Madrasi monkeys in their own lingo.

then sacred state ideologies, such as Nehruvian secularism and socialism;

Secularism never existed and Socialism had been abandoned long ago.

he spoke of a “Congress-free” India;

Congress is now a purely dynastic party. Aatish may believe in the hereditary principle that a Prime Minister must be the son or daughter of a Prime Minister. Others may feel that a democracy should be free of such thinking.

he demonstrated no desire to foster brotherly feeling between Hindus and Muslims.

Nonsense! He has fostered brotherly feelings between Hindu and Muslim members of the B.J.P.

Most of all, his ascension showed that beneath the surface of what the elite had believed was a liberal syncretic culture, India was indeed a cauldron of religious nationalism, anti-Muslim sentiment and deep-seated caste bigotry.

Wow! Aatish says the Indian elite knew nothing about their own country! They themselves married off their daughters to untouchables and gave their sons names like Ram Mohammad Chamar.

The country had a long history of politically instigated sectarian riots, most notably the killing of at least 2,733 Sikhs in the streets of Delhi after the 1984 assassination of Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards. The Congress leadership, though hardly blameless, was able, even through the selective profession of secular ideals, to separate itself from the actions of the mob.

Utterly mad! I was in Delhi at the time. I saw what the 'Congress leadership' did.
Since Delhi has a huge army presence, the riots could have been stopped by Rajiv with a single phone call. Indeed, President Zail Singh could have taken the initiative. By contrast, Modi called in the Army during the post Godhra riots. Thanks to George Fernandes, the Minister of Defense, the troops showed willingness to open fire. That is the only way to stop such pogroms. Aatish, cretin that he is, thinks 'selective profession of secular ideals' is a better way forward.

Modi, by his deafening silences after more recent atrocities, such as the killing of more than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, in his home state of Gujarat in 2002, proved himself a friend of the mob.

He sent in the Army with shoot to kill orders. The mob took about 300 casualties before running away. This ended the cycle of communal rioting which had begun in 1969.

Aatish may have seen the film 'Raees' starring Shahrukh Khan. A Congress Minister of Fisheries used this bootlegger to get arms and explosives from the Pakistani ISI to stage a terrorist incident in Surat which triggered rioting. This was par for the course as far as Congress secularism goes. This Minister then teamed up with another Muslim politician to kill a Muslim M.P who was close to the Home Minister. This proved a step too far. 'Raees' fled to Pakistan but then fell out with Dawood and came back to turn approver. However, the police- who had been on his pay-roll- bumped him off as part of their selective profession of secular ideals.

He made one yearn for the hypocrisies of the past, for, as Aldous Huxley writes, at least “the political hypocrite admits the existence of values higher than those of immediate national, party or economic interest.”

Aatish is yearning like anything for the hypocrisies of the past. Why? Does he not understand that he and his husband would have been put in jail under that hypocritical regime which held that Homosexuality, as Jawaharlal Nehru said, did not exist in India? The thing was some foreign fad. Indians are not doing such naughty things. As for sculptures showing sodomy in Khajuraho, you must understand that is actually a very spiritually advanced type of yoga. It is not involving putting pee-pee in chee chee place. Kindly read Aurobindo to understand how Kundalini is rising and rising and then Gnostic Being is being attained such that everybody will realize that T.S Eliot not good at Latin at all! Whole world should understand that lines like the following are completely unpoetic-  April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain. A proper, spiritually instructed person, would have written- 'The grandiosity of April is the most grandiosely cruel month because the grandiosity of the Supramental plane can breed lilacs out grandiosely dead land which is so grandiose that Gnostic being can be attained at the Gift shop. All sales are final. Don't ask for Credit because a refusal often offends'.

Modi, without offering an alternative moral compass, rubbished the standards India had, and made all moral judgment seem subject to conditions of class and culture warfare.

 Modi opposes open defecation. He builds toilets for poor people. His moral compass points in a very different direction than that of Aatish's beloved elite. Incidentally, Aurobindo went to St. Pauls and Nehru to Harrow. Grandioser blathershites not this world has seen.

The high ideals of the past have come under his reign to seem like nothing but the hollow affectations of an entrenched power elite.

There were no high ideals. There was- as Aatish's mother has recorded- an unseemly rush to get rich. People who, in the Seventies, drank Old Monk and visited their poorer friends in rented 'barsatis', suddenly developed a mania for Patek Phillipe & mansions in Mayfair.

When, in 2019, Modi tweets, “You know what is my crime for them? That a person born to a poor family is challenging their Sultunate [sic],” he is trying to resurrect the spirit of 2014, which was the spirit of revolution.

Modi's point is that his family is still relatively poor. Mamta's nephew is rich. Mayawati lives like an Empress. As for the Gandhis- in 1977, they were relatively poor. They didn't own a house of their own in New Delhi. Now look at them!

Them is India’s English-speaking elite, as represented by the Congress party; sultanate is a dog whistle to suggest that all the heirs of foreign rule in India–the country had centuries of Muslim rule before the British took over in 1858–are working in tandem to prevent the rise of a proud Hindu nation.

Aatish thinks the British took over from Muslims in 1858. He writes this in Time magazine- which was once quite prestigious. Don't these people employ fact checkers?

Is Aatish's article wholly worthless? I pick out the following paragraph as being of an acceptable standard.

He has in every field, from politics and economics to Indology itself, privileged authenticity over ability, leading India down the road to a profound anti-intellectualism.

There genuinely are some smart people who believe this is happening. The trouble is those same people can't explain why 'privileging ability' hurt India so badly in the past. Consider the Planning Commission. It was never more of a disaster than under Sukhamoy Chakravarty whom Samuelson considered the best Development Economist in the world.

He appointed Swaminathan Gurumurthy, Hindu nationalist ideologue, to the board of the Reserve Bank of India–a man of whom the renowned Columbia economist Jagdish Bhagwati said, “If he’s an economist, I’m a Bharatanatyam dancer.”

Appointing Gurumurthy was a smart move- though the position is part-time and has little influence- precisely because he is famous as an enemy of Dhiru Ambanis (who, like Bhagwati, was Gujerati). The real job of the RBI is to shake out over-leveraged Corporates and 'zombie' enterprises. You need a tough C.A not a fucking academic to do the job.

Incidentally, Rajan could have been a good choice because his dad was high up in Intelligence. We thought Rajan would have even better information sources than Gurumurthy. However, he was a purely cosmetic hire.

The truth is famous Indian academics tend to be as stupid as shit. What great wonders did Kaushik Basu achieve?
Bhagwati's own protege, Aravind Panagariya had the good sense to bow out gracefully. India needs smart bankers to run the RBI ably assisted by good forensic accountants. There has to be a shakeout at the top to free up resources and remove bottlenecks. Academics should stick to chalk and talk.

It was Gurumurthy who, in a quest to deal with the menace of “black money,” is thought to have advised Modi to put 86% of India’s banknotes out of commission overnight in 2016, causing huge economic havoc from which the country is yet to recover.

Yet Modi benefited politically from it. It took the wind out of the sails of Anna Hazare type populist agitations. Arguably demonetization reduced the rate of growth but the fact remains India grew.

Modi now finds himself seeking to hold power in a climate of febrile nationalism, with a platform whose themes have much more to do with national security and profiting from recent tensions between India and Pakistan than with economic growth.

Modi is holding power. Aatish's Pakistani relatives may have helped him by their stupidity. But that sort of idiocy is present even in Sri Lanka.

In 2017, after winning state elections in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, which happens also to have its largest Muslim population, the BJP appointed a hate-mongering priest in robes of saffron, the color of Hindu nationalism, to run that state. Yogi Adityanath had not been the face of the campaign. If he was known at all, it was for vile rhetoric, here imploring crowds to kill a hundred Muslims for every Hindu killed, there sharing the stage with a man who wanted to dig up the bodies of Muslim women and rape them.

Aatish, being a foreigner, may not have known Yogi Adityanath. Yet the Yogi has been a Member of Parliament in New Delhi for 21 years! Since he is also the head of one of the most popular Hindu monastic orders, many people in Delhi know him as a good man who helps good people without demanding a bribe.

Making the Yogi C.M was a good idea for 3 different reasons- viz
1) He was the same age as Rahul and Akhilesh and the U.P voter had shown a preference for younger leaders
2) He had solid connections in New Delhi and thus could get Central funds released more particularly because
3) He was not corrupt. Bureaucrats could sign off on files without fearing an inquiry by the Vigilance Dept.

Still, it must be said, many people in India had come to hate and fear Muslims. Being tough on terror, reduces that fear and mellows that hatred. Indeed, many Muslims themselves feel that there is a type of Islamic militancy which should be curbed- more particularly where Muslims are a minority.

Modi has presided over a continuous assault on the grove of academe, where the unqualified and semiliterate have been encouraged to build their shanties.

This happened long ago. West Bengal under the Left Front saw a steep fall in academic standards. In many other states, the University campus was ab ovo associated with caste based gangsterism. The Hindu Right has a slightly better reputation than its rivals because the nationalist ideology it espouses chimes with what is required for jobs in the Army, the police and the Civil Administration. The private sector, too, would prefer to hire people who believe that employees have a duty to work for the Enterprise, not seek to wreck it as part of a wider assault on Capitalism.

Academia in India was dogmatically left-wing, but rather than change its politics, Modi attacked the idea of qualification itself.

The idea that a PhD in Political Science had any value was challenged long ago. India had a full blown Credentialist crisis in the Sixties itself.

In India, even qualifications in STEM subjects can be useless. The bus conduction with an M.A in Mechanical Engineering has been with us for four decades. The film 'Agneepath' came out in 1990. Mithun Chakrabarty plays the role of 'Krishnan Iyer M.A' (i.e. a Tamil Brahmin with a Masters Degree). What does Iyer do for a living? He is a 'nariyal panee wallah'- he sells coconut water on the footpath. Indeed, Pico Iyer- who used to write for Time in the Eighties- got his start in a similar manner- or so I fondly believe.

Aatish thinks Modi should have changed the political views of Academics. That is Fascism. Condemning the Degree inflation worthless Academics have presided over is alethic and democratic.

When Modi said 'hard work is more important than Harvard', most economists had to agree. It was the Harvard Econ Dept which wrecked Yeltsin's Russia.

From the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) to Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), which produced a roll call of politicians and intellectuals, India’s places of learning have been hollowed out, the administration and professors chosen for their political ideology rather than basic levels of proficiency.

Nonsense! Stupid leftists haven't lost teaching jobs- though they may have been squeezed out of some sinecures. Instead they have some equally stupid rightists as colleagues. The were shit and remained shit and will always be shit because India decided long ago that Credentials were wholly shite.

Modi is right to criticize an India in which modernity came to be synonymous with Westernization, so that all those ideas and principles that might have had universal valence became the preserve of those who were exposed to European and American culture.

Aatish is quite mad to believe any such thing. Europeans and Americans are more exposed to European and American culture than Indians. If Indians believed that ideas and principles which have universal valence are the preserve of White people, they should clamor for Sonia to take charge. Every dynasty should marry off a daughter or son to a White person. Then that White person should be brought back to India to rule the country.

What Modi cannot–or will not–do is tell India the hard truth that if she wishes to be a great power, and not a Hindu theocracy, the medieval Indian past, mired in superstition and magic, must go under.

Great powers have nuclear weapons. India's nuclear weapons and delivery systems were built by, among others, pious South Indians who began their day chanting Sanskrit shlokas. They then busied themselves writing equations and testing things in the laboratory. Suppose they had chosen instead to lecture each other on the need for the medieval Indian past to go under, they would have achieved nothing.

Aatish, cretin that he is, makes this clear by quoting the words of a silly man who once went in for a bit of wife swapping with 'the Beast' Aleister Crowley.

It is not enough to be more truly oneself. “In India, as in Europe,” wrote the great Sri Lankan historian A.K. Coomaraswamy, “the vestiges of ancient civilization must be renounced: we are called from the past and must make our home in the future. But to understand, to endorse with passionate conviction, and to love what we have left behind us is the only possible foundation for power.”

Yup, that's the secret of Trump's success right enough.

The desperation that underlies Modi’s India is that of people clinging to the past, ill-equipped for the modern world, people in whom the zealous love of country stands in for real confidence.

Is Aatish well equipped for the modern world? Perhaps his husband is and will protect him. That may be a source of real confidence for him.

The question of what is hers, and what has come from the outside, is a constant source of anxiety in India.

To whom? Out of 1.4 billion people how many feel constantly anxious on this score? Do people really say 'OMG, I just discovered my phone is from China! What should I do?' Of course they do. This happens everyday. My reply to such anguished queries is to say- 'take dip in holy Ganga. Then eat gobi Manchurian- because historical research has proved it isn't actually a Chinese dish at all.'

The same process that made the Indian elite “foreigners in their own land”–in Mahatma Gandhi’s phrasing–is repeating, albeit unevenly, throughout the country across classes and groups never exposed to Western norms and culture in the past.

Gandhi was speaking at an inaugural ceremony for Benares Hindu University. This was some thirty years after the 'Orientalists' had prevailed over the 'Occidentalists' and- apart from the Presidency Colleges- Higher Education in all parts of India laid equal, or higher, stress on Classical and Vernacular Indian languages.
Gandhi was utterly out of date in his thinking- though he is attributing a foolish view to some nameless interlocutors of his.

What he said was this ' I have heard it said that after all it is English educated India which is leading and which is doing all the things for the nation. 

Every important Indian who spoke English at that time (save for Aurobindo & Jawaharlal) was more fluent in at least one Indian language. Lawyers like Motilal and Sapru were fine Persianists. Those from the South were learned in Sanskrit, Tamil and Telugu (in which it was the fashion to compose theistic verse).

Success at the Bar required a good knowledge of vernacular languages as well as some training in classical languages so as to interpret ancient legal texts- generally of a religious nature.

Every civil servant in India- White or otherwise- was forced to pass exams in vernacular and Classical Indian languages in order to qualify for promotion and salary increments.

It would be monstrous if it were otherwise.
It was otherwise. Powerful Princes and Merchant Princes disdained to learn English. They hired people to handle that side of things. The sons or nephews of Dewans of smaller Princes- people like Gandhi and the Nehrus- may get ahead in the law but they spoke to their clients in the vernacular language. Gandhi got his start because he spoke Gujerati.

 The only education we receive is English education. 
Really? Consider the case of Shyamji Krishna Varma. He attended Wilson High School in Bombay. He learned Sanskrit there. He became an orator in that language and was given the title of Pundit, though he was not a Brahman, by the learned scholars of Benares. Monier Williams employed him as an assistant. This enabled Varma to attend Balliol and qualify as a barrister. He did well in India and made enough money to retire to England and engage in revolutionary work.
Yet, it was Sanskrit, not English, which had opened doors for him.

Surely we must show something for it. But suppose that we had been receiving during the past fifty years education through our vernaculars, what should we have today?
Indians did receive primary education in the vernacular. Parents demanded that some English instruction also be given. Even in the Arya Samaj schools, administrators had to yield to popular demand in this respect. This story has been endlessly repeated in independent India.
 We should have today a free India,
Nonsense! A free India is an India with sufficient naval power to prevent foreigners seizing pieces of its littoral and monopolizing the gains from trade.
 we should have our educated men, not as if they were foreigners in their own land but speaking to the heart of the nation; they would be working amongst the poorest of the poor, and whatever they would have gained during these fifty years would be a heritage for the nation.
Gandhi may have believed this in 1917. By 1922 his views had changed. It was the easiest thing in the world for men who still spoke their mother tongue at home- even Motilal Nehru insisted that only Hindi be spoken at the family dinner table- and who changed into traditional attire the moment they returned from work- to give speeches dressed in native costume to other natives in their common tongue. But such speeches changed nothing.
 Today even our wives are not the sharers in our best thought. Look at Professor Bose and Professor Ray and their brilliant researches. Is it not a shame that their researches are not the common property of the masses?
Gandhi may have believed that mathematical physics can be easily understood if expounded in Gujerati. We do not share this belief. Even if I learn Bengali, I will never understand what a 'boson' is or why it matters. The only thing I know about it is that it is not a type of dessert similar to ras gulla or gulab jamun.

Aatish and his husband may have a touching faith in Western 'norms and cultures'. But, have they really been exposed to its entire range? Homophobia was once a substantial plank of its norms. Can both really be entirely certain that the thing might not return with a vengeance?

No part of India- even Goa- became Westernized. No Indian has ever been exposed to Western culture while living in India. Dom Moraes and Ved Mehta once visited Niradh Chaudhri in Delhi and giggled together because this self proclaimed Anglophile wore a dhoti. Chaudhri had the last laugh by continuing to wear a dhoti after settling in Oxford.

Aatish spent some time in Benares researching a book. Reading between the lines, we can see that he attracted a certain sort of person whose blandishments he naively records-

“Our culture is being decimated,” one young member of the ABVP–the most powerful Hindu nationalist youth organization in the country–told me in Varanasi. “Many in my family have received degrees in commerce; but I chose to be nearer my culture. A great civilization, like ours, cannot be subdued without the complicity of men on the inside, working against us. Someone–I cannot say who–is controlling us, and there is but the difference of a syllable between vikas [development] and vinasha [ruin].”

Wow! Where did Aatish find a person so utterly illiterate in Hindi that he did not know there is a difference of two syllables between vikas and vinaSh?

Why did Aatish not call him on this error? How fucking deracinated is he?

This young Hindu nationalist is part of a new generation of Indians, untouched by colonization, but not spared globalization. They live with a profound sense of being trifled with.

Because they can't spell even simple Hindi words despite being Hindi speakers.

They feel their culture and religion has been demeaned; they entertain fantasies of “Hinduphobia” and speak with contempt of “sickluars,” “libtards” and the “New Yuck Times.”

I do the same and I'm not exactly young. On the other hand, on my visits to India, I don't find ordinary young people using the term 'libtard'. Nor do they refer to the NYT in familiar terms. No doubt, Aatish meets a different sort of young person. An Amherst education can do that to you.

One has the feeling they are converting their sense of cultural loss into a political ideology.

Oh, one does, does one? Why? The thing was played out long before one was born. V.S Naipaul took out the patent on it back in the Sixties. One would feel one was a fucking cretin if one had such a silly and derivative feeling.

It produces in them a rage for the Other–Muslims, lower castes, the Indian elite–“the men on the inside,” who have more generations of Westernization behind them.

What does it produce in Aatish? Rage against Modi and all those other Indians wot didn't go to Amherst and marry a nice White boy and yet can boast of such extraordinary accomplishments that Amherst alumni, like Aatish, are forced to write about them for Time magazine.

Last month, Amit Shah compared Muslim immigrants to “termites,” and the BJP’s official Twitter handle no longer bothers with dog whistles: “We will remove every single infiltrator from the country, except Buddha [sic], Hindus and Sikhs.”

In other words, the BJP is saying it will uphold the law and honor the promises made by a previous Congress administration.

If this wasn’t bad enough, the BJP’s candidate for the central Indian city of Bhopal, with its rich Muslim history and a Muslim population of over 25%, is a saffron-clad female saint, who stands accused of masterminding a terrorist attack in which six people were killed near a mosque. Currently out on bail, Sadhvi Pragya Thakur’s candidacy marks that all-too-familiar turn when the specter of extreme nationalism and criminality become inseparable.

Thakur says she was framed by the Congress party. She blames Digvijay Singh- whom she is running against. Why does Aatish call her a saint? She is a 'sadhvi' (nun) not a 'Sant'.

If she does well, it will be because voters believe that Congress misused the criminal justice system and created the bogey of 'Hindu terror' out of thin air. This is actually quite a reasonable view. The Sadhvi is helping her own case by campaigning on this platform. The man she is running against criticized Obama for not giving Osama a proper burial. He may yet go to jail for corruption. Getting elected will strengthen his hand against possible prosecution.

Modi’s India feels like a place where the existing order of things has passed away, without any credible new order having come into being.

It only feels like that to Aatish because it felt like that to Naipaul and Niradh Babu and so on.

Modi has won–and may yet win again–but to what end?

To end open defecation and to build infrastructure and carry out needful reforms like GST etc.

His brand of populism has certainly served as a convincing critique of Indian society, of which there could be no better symbol than the Congress Party. They have little to offer other than the dynastic principle, yet another member of the Nehru-Gandhi family. India’s oldest party has no more political imagination than to send Priyanka Gandhi–Rahul’s sister–to join her brother’s side.

In India, people join politics to spend more time with their families.

It would be the equivalent of the Democrat’s fielding Hillary Clinton again in 2020, with the added enticement of Chelsea as VP.

Aatish is being silly. Rahul is a moon-calf. Priyanka is sharp witted. The reason she has been brought in is because her son will be eligible for election in a few years time. He is the heir presumptive of the dynasty. Loyalists need to know that Rahul is killed, the family will remain intact and its 'favor-bank' will remain liquid.

Modi is lucky to be blessed with so weak an opposition–a ragtag coalition of parties, led by the Congress, with no agenda other than to defeat him.

If this was meant to be a hatchet job, Modi is lucky that Time magazine chose so inept a hack to do the dirty work.

Even so, doubts assail him, for he must know he has not delivered on the promise of 2014.

Quite true. That is why his 'Plan B' is to do a deal with regional dynasts like Naveen Patnaik. It makes sense for Modi- as a former C.M- to make the BJP the party of 'subsidiarity'- i.e. State's Rights.

It is why he has resorted to looking for enemies within.

Nonsense! Modi, unlike Indira or Rahul, does not hint that he is being betrayed by people within his own party. In Rajiv's case, the thing actually happened. In Modi's case, there are no whispers that such and such clique is manipulating him.

There can be no doubt, that the Pakistanis- and Aatish's late father was Pakistani- have helped Modi. But unlike Aatish, few Indians have a Pakistani father. Thus this is an enemy from without, not within.

Like other populists, he sits in his white house tweeting out his resentment against the sultanate of “them.”

Really? Does Modi not name names? Does he not say explicitly that Rajiv Gandhi was corrupt and that the dynasty has enriched itself by illegal means? This does not look like sullen resentment at all. It looks like a slashing frontal attack.

And, as India gets ready to give this willful provincial, so emblematic of her own limitations, a second term, one cannot help but tremble at what he might yet do to punish the world for his own failures.

Oh dear. Aatish- who believes himself to be of New Delhi's elite- calls Modi a provincial- that too a willful one. Yet Modi is the Prime Minister of a great country. He is acclaimed for his will power and determination, not his capriciousness. Nobody thinks of him as a miserly 'Gujju'- though he can tell a good 'Gujju' joke. This concerns a khadi clad man who alights at Nagpur railway station but does not engage a rickshaw. Nevertheless, a rickshawallah follows him and once they are at a little distance from the station- calls out to him 'Babu, nobody can see us here. You can engage my services without anyone criticizing you for betraying your Samajwadi principles'.
The rejoinder is immediate- 'Unluckily for you, I am not a Samajwadi socialist, but an Ahmedabadi merchant. My principle is 'take care of the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves!'

 Aatish, through no fault of his own, is a bastard. Amitav Ghosh writes of the anguish caused by 'his father’s refusal to acknowledge that Aatish too might be ‘culturally Muslim’, and that he too might have a claim to being in some way Pakistani'. Since then, Aatish has married a White man. Perhaps he still feels he has a right to be considered both 'culturally Muslim' and Pakistani in some way. Perhaps, this hatchet job on a 'willful provincial' is his way of burnishing some such claim. If so, like the Pulwana attack, it misfires. Indians reading it feel aversion for the sort of elite Aatish considers himself to belong to. They have no norms and no culture. Why? It is because they are lazy and prefer to recycle stupid lies rather than attempt any arduous research or alethic parrhesia.

The word 'Aatish' means 'fire'. Any responsible editor would have fired young Aatish for writing such facile tosh. Well they would have done in the old days before 'aesthetic affirmative action' became a thing.