Ashutosh Varshney producing Muslim helplessness

Ashutosh Varshney is a Professor at Brown. Can he say something more stupid than other expatriate Professors about the Supreme Court's Ram Mandir decision?

He wrote the following in the Indian Express. Is there even a single sentence in it which is not utterly foolish?

If Hindu consolidation goes further, Muslims will become electorally even more irrelevant.

In 1946, the Muslim League won 90% of Muslim votes. This directly led to the creation of Pakistan. Massive ethnic cleansing occurred on both sides of the border. Except in Kerala, Muslim political parties disappeared from India. Furthermore the three main demands of the Muslims- to do with quotas in the Administration and Legislature, equal treatment for Urdu and the protection of Aligarh Muslim University's minority status- were given short shrift.

Under Indira Gandhi, the police- not Hindus- were in the vanguard of violence against Muslims protesting the change in Aligarh University's status which, of course, was sanctioned by the Supreme Court (Azeez Basha vs UoI, 1968). Later, as part of her right-ward shift, she restored minority status in 1981 but the rising generation saw no great benefit flow from this. It was foolish for ordinary Muslims- like bangle-makers and other such artisans- to sacrifice their lives in a cause which their own progeny could gain no advantage from.

The plain fact is, the vast mass of Muslims were not able to gain anything of benefit to themselves through electoral politics (save in the South, where the Pakistan movement had never taken hold). They were simply a vote bank who could be manipulated by venal Mullahs or vicious Mobsters in the service of dynastic politicians of a Casteist type.

By 'Hindu consolidation', Varshney means Hindus voting regardless of caste for the BJP. However, in the last election, Congress reinvented itself as Hindutva lite. This ploy failed because Rahul Baba is a cretin. The Muslim vote was even more irrelevant than it had been in 2014 when its splintering was blamed on lack of Opposition unity.

In what way could the Muslim vote become more irrelevant than it already is? None. By what method can it become more relevant? The answer is the Muslims must do what the OBCs and Dalits did- viz. have their own Party. That has worked in Kerala- why not in the rest of India where there are several constituencies with a Muslim plurality? Why should the Muslim play second fiddle to a Dalit or OBC dynast? Look at Owaisi. He is a dynast and has burnished his reputation while Prakash Ambedkar has been left looking foolish. Why should there not be regional Muslim dynastic parties which come together to form a caucus in the States and at the Center? There were periods when something like this obtained. Why not now when Social Media and greater Mobility has empowered Youth?

Varshney won't tell us.

We can’t still be sure this would happen. But even if Hindu electoral consolidation remains at the current level, India’s Muslims would need the judiciary’s counter-majoritarianism to safeguard their interests.

This is nonsense. Minorities are constitutionally protected and therefore neglected because gerontocratic rent-seekers get to fuck up the life-chances of the Young.

When has there ever been any judicial 'counter-majoritarianism'? In America, the phrase is associated with unelected judges preventing the majority from passing laws favorable to Labor and to the disadvantage of the plutocrats.

 Varshney comes from India same as me. He too is a Hindu and, to be frank, more dehati and a bit older.  He knows very well that the Muslim was reduced to second class status by the Hindu 'intermediate' class' to which Varshney's people belong.

I suppose I should explain what has caused Varshney to write such nonsense. The answer is that he is teaching in Amrika. In US political theory there is a notion of 'counter-majoritarianism'. Wikipedia states- ' Alexander Bickel, a law professor at Yale Law School, coined the term counter-majoritarian difficulty in his 1962 book, The Least Dangerous Branch. He used the term to describe the argument that judicial review is illegitimate because it allows unelected judges to overrule the lawmaking of elected representatives, thus undermining the will of the majority. The problem stems from the understanding that a democracy's legitimacy arises from the fact that it implements the will of the majority (majoritarianism).'

The US is a rich country with more than a million lawyers. It is completely different from India. In the US, if you get a court order you can evict your tenant. In India, even a High Court Judge had to use a local 'Don' to reclaim his property. In America a Supreme Court decision is likely to be implemented. In India, it is likely to be completely ignored. That is one reason the Bench often feels it can say what it likes. Nothing material will be affected. The fact is, everybody understands that Politicians want ambiguity on wedge issues. They have kicked the can down the road to the Judiciary which can make any decision it likes, secure in the knowledge that the thing won't be implemented unless the ruling politicians want it to be implemented. Anyway, the Judges will soon retire and need to ensure they get a sinecure from the powers that be. By contrast, in America, tenure is for life. This means that 'counter-majoritarian difficulty' is a real thing.

In any case, Judicial over-reach is only a problem if judgments are enforced. This is a non-problem in India. Both the State Govt. & the Bench may say 'x is mandatory'. But try doing x and you get your head kicked in while the police stand idly by. So you understand 'x is mandatory' means 'pretend to do x, but don't unless you are tired of life'.

The Court has held Hindu mobs responsible for an egregious violation of the law on December 6, 1992.

In America, to say the Court held x responsible for a serious crime is also to say 'x is a villain'. In India, in a political context, it is to say 'x is like Mahatma Gandhi or Pandit Nehru or Veer Savarkar'. X did the right thing which is why X is currently occupying the Mansion built for some British politician or high official. '

For the first time since Independence, an entirely new electoral prospect has been consolidating itself. This phenomenon can be conceptualised as the political irrelevance of Muslims.

The great mass of ethnic cleansing occurred after Independence. Muslim Leaguers didn't become irrelevant- they became refugees. Congress Muslims- even a Kidwai or Azad- could do nothing to arrest the swift and utter eclipse of Muslims as a political force. To me, this is a heartbreaking story. We are speaking of a marvelous concentration of Human Capital which we, very foolishly, either destroyed or handed over gratis to Pakistan or the ex-Colonial power. Every single 'mujahir' we lost enriched our enemies while harming the good, mainly Hindu, people of their own ancestral home. Imagine a Bollywood which was purged of all but utterly emasculated Muslims. Is there even one good movie it could have produced? Now look at those parts of India where a previously highly educated and cultured community was emasculated and pushed down to second class status. What do you see?  'BIMARU'.  By contrast, look at Kerala or T.N. To be a Muslim is an advantage not a disability. Why? Muslims do smart things, find new opportunities, and thus open doors for the rest of us. What's wrong with that? Economics is a positive sum game- more especially in a Developing Economy where mimetic effects alone drive dynamics.

It came to life with the 2014 general elections, though some might drag it back further. Its implications, serious in any case, have become even more so after the Ayodhya judgment of the Supreme Court.

Muslims became electorally irrelevant in Upper India in 1946- because the Muslim League got 90 % of Muslim votes and was able to create Pakistan.  Granted Varshney managed to emigrate on the basis of some bogus type of credential, but is he really as ignorant of Indian reality as the dog in 'Family Guy' who attended a semester at Brown?

Everybody knows that Advani's monopolizing the issue- which would not have happened had Rajiv not been killed- was what turned the BJP into the Hindu, and therefore, National, Party by default. Of course, they first had to get their act together and show they could implement better governance.

The Court has held Hindu mobs responsible for an egregious violation of the law on December 6, 1992 — when they destroyed the Babri mosque — but deploying the kind of legal reasoning that frustrates non-specialists of law, it has handed over the site, where the erstwhile mosque stood, to the Hindu community for the building of a Ram temple.

Courts either recognize their limitations or lose salience. Varshney may think it a great scandal that Nehru and Patel and so on- all of whom had been jailed for sedition- took over the country.

In a display of religious equidistance that marks Indian secularism, the Court has also allowed a mosque to be built on a plot twice as large as the original site.

The Court has asked the Government to provide a plot of land of this description. It is not known if the Muslims will accept it.

But those who destroyed the mosque, according to India’s highest court, now have the right to construct a temple in its place.

Nonsense! The guys who destroyed the structure (which, contra Varshney, was not a mosque according to Islamic Law because no Islamic worship, as opposed to Hindu worship, had been offered there since 1949) have not been granted any such right by the Court.
On the other hand, there is a proposal that the Government award them a pension or some similar mark of esteem to the karsevaks. To my knowledge, it is not being seriously entertained.  The plain fact is, the right to construct the temple will be vested in a Trust created the Central Government. It is likely to consist of eminent people some of whom may have a profound knowledge of Hindu canon law and thus are qualified to approve the plans for the Temple.

If the Court intends to draw a distinction between the law-breakers, who ought to be punished, and the larger Hindu community, whose wishes should not be denied, it can still argue it has not abandoned the idea of justice.

The Court drew a distinction between those who illegally razed the structure and those who did not. No Court is going to argue it has or hasn't 'abandoned the idea of justice'. Similarly, Varshney is not going to argue that he hasn't really abandoned the idea of Truth.

But given its lack of resolve to confront electorally enabled power, one cannot be too sanguine about whether it would punish those who violated the law but are currently in power.

Over the last 27 years, no one has been convicted no matter who was in power. The case has been with the Supreme Court for 7 years with proceedings picking up pace since 2017. However, many of the accused are dead and others are very elderly.

How the Court actually pronounces on the culprits of December 6, 1992, will, therefore, be carefully watched.

Nonsense! Nobody cares. Nobody is going to do any jail time whatever the outcome. In any case, the President can pardon all concerned.

Admittedly, some Muslims will not mind the judgment, thinking it ends a seemingly interminable period of painful contention and provides an opportunity to move on.

Most Muslims don't care about this issue at all.

But many are likely to feel doubly marginalised.

So what? Some Muslims in America- even recent converts- feel so marginalized that they run amok killing people. With or without a grievance, people may feel marginalized simply because Society isn't doing the sorts of things they approve of.

They are being made electorally irrelevant, and even the judiciary has not sufficiently protected them.

The Judiciary never protected Muslims in India or Hindus in Pakistan. That is why ethnic cleansing was not reversed. Indeed, the Judiciary has little power to enforce its judgments. The Executive, too, finds that there are many constraints on its freedom of action. Why pretend otherwise?

Two points should immediately be noted.

No points raised by cretins should be noted save by way of convicting them of imbecility.

First, in the 1940s, Jinnah’s argument for partition was precisely that democracy in a Hindu-majority India would serve the interests of Hindus, not of the Muslim minority.

This is silly. The local majority determines outcome in a locality. The Center can do little to check this. The Kashmiri Muslims ethnically cleansed the Hindu Pundits from the Valley. The Center was powerless to reverse this outcome.

The argument was wrong, as both Nehru and Ambedkar painstakingly demonstrated.

The argument was wrong for Muslims in Hindu majority areas because the creation of Pakistan brought them no benefit whatsoever. Rather, it rendered them second class citizens. Jinnah's actual argument was 'the hostage theory'- i.e. Indian Muslims would be protected by the Government for fear of what might happen to Hindus in Pakistan. But they were killed or ethnically cleansed. Ambedkar's pal J.N Mandal, who had taken a Cabinet Portfolio in Pakistan, had to flee to India. His Namasudra caste-fellows too were ethnically cleansed.

Nehru never 'painstakingly demonstrated' anything. He believed that with the advent of Socialism, Religion would disappear from Politics. He was wrong.

It is ironical that the argument, false then and for decades later, is starting to acquire credibility now, for the system after seven decades is threatening to generate Muslim helplessness.

'Threatening to generate'? Muslims have been helpless since 1946, if not earlier. After 1937, when Congress took over the administration they were only able to offer namaz at the Babri Masjid on Friday under police protection. After Independence, even that became impossible. A Hindu priest offered puja there once a year and, under Rajiv Gandhi, it was opened to Hindu worshipers. A foundation stone laying ceremony was conducted. Had Rajiv lived, he would have built the temple. But he was assassinated.

The trend is still not irreversible, but it is dire.

Nonsense! Things have been getting better for Muslims because of improved Governance, 'last mile delivery', and expanded Economic opportunities. The younger generation is not interested in the status of Urdu- now an official second language in U.P- because they prefer English for professional purposes and Arabic for sacred ones. Urdu purists claim to feel great distress that the Arabic pronunciation is displacing the native one. Similarly, Muslims don't care about Aligarh Muslim University. Cow slaughter is off the table because nobody wants to do the ritual slaughter and thus put a target on their own back. Thus beef consumption is equated with 'unclean' people.

Second, a lot of democratic theory, and much of modern democratic practice, envisions the judiciary as a counter-majoritarian institution.

All democratic theory is worthless. No 'modern democratic practice' envisions the judiciary as other than protocol bound. But those protocols can be changed by a sufficiently large majority in the legislature. The very phrase 'counter-majoritarian difficulty' challenges the notion of judicial review by unelected judges of what is desired by the majority. Varshney is pretending the reverse. The fact is that Judges in the Common Law tradition have established conventions- e.g. the 'doctrine of political question' to avoid 'counter-majoritarian difficulties' by restricting the scope of justiciablity. India was an outlier in terms of judicial activism because lazy Legislatures preferred to kick the can down the road. Everything requiring a decision became 'sub judice'- the only Latin phrase known to all Netas. Pakistan, in recent years, has been even worse. But there is now a backlash. In future, the Bench will be more circumspect.

In a multi-ethnic, multi-religious democratic polity, the electoral process can easily begin to reflect the wishes of the ethnic or religious majority.

Which is the only reason they might want Democracy as opposed to Autocracy.

But the judiciary’s functioning is fundamentally based on constitutional principles, not the wishes of the majority.

Constitutions can and have been amended by the Legislature which bows to the wishes of the majority.

If the judiciary only replicated what governments, legislatures or political parties based on electoral victories did, we would not really need it as a separate and autonomous institution.

The judiciary interprets the laws enacted by the legislature in the context of specific cases brought to it. In India, a lot of the cases which come up before the Judiciary involve disputes between different organs of Government. Every decision is appealed till it finds its way to the Supreme Court which then orders an inquiry so the fun can start all over again.

The reason we need a separate and autonomous institution to adjudicate disputes is because it spares the Executive from having to apply its mind to vexed questions such that they are 'damned if they do, and damned if they don't'.

That is also why minorities in a democracy have often looked up to the courts for protection, when popular electoral currents go against them.

Not in India. Why? Everybody knows that Court judgments won't be enforced. In any case, the legal system affords many opportunities to delay matters till witnesses turn hostile or the matter becomes infructuous.

Minorities have been protected by Autocrats. They have not been protected by Judges. In America, 'substantive due process' was credited with a possible counter-majoritarian role. However the devil was in the detail of enforcement. The testimony of African American economists is that discrimination did not cease, it increased, because this was a double edged sword. Those with more resources could use Laws, and Court decisions, in a manner the reverse of what was intended.

In America, the appointment by Roosevelt of Hugo Black to the Supreme Court, was explicitly 'majoritarian'. The victories of the Civil Rights movement reflected the fact that African Americans belonged to the majority class- i.e. the working class- as did Women and so forth. The very rich belong to a small minority. It was they who loved the 'counter-majoritarian' view. They pretended that unjust practices which enriched them must be maintained or else 'mob rule' would prevail.

On the other hand, the rich pickings to be had from 'class action suits' could, in the short run, provide relief for poor people. But Corporate lawyers and lobbyists soon found a way round that. Thus Economists tend to be skeptical about judicially enabled 'countervailing power'. There is no substitute to properly coordinated mass political action. If this were not the case, Trade Unions should not have an exemption under the Restrictive Trade Practices Legislation.

A small fraction of political/legal theory does say that courts could endorse majoritarianism, if it was legislatively approved, and some courts have historically done that.

Political/Legal theory is shit and any fraction of it is equally shit. 'Counter-majoritarian difficulty' means unelected Judges can use their arbitrary power to serve a tiny number of plutocrats while the vast mass of the population goes to the wall. They can't protect minorities from being lynched or ethnically cleansed. They can protect very rich people who can hire private security guards ready to kill anyone who makes trouble. These guys will have expensive lawyers to prove 'self defense.'

Legally, Blacks suffered a lot — and for decades — in America’s South.

But life wasn't a bed of roses in the North either.

But most theorists would prescribe to the judiciary a majority-constraining role, should the majority or its representatives cross legal lines.

Theorists don't matter. Ordinary people, however, know that only a small number of any community runs amok breaking the law. It is in their own interests that those nutters or sociopaths are punished regardless of their ethnic or other affiliation.

A Hindu temple on the contested site after a mosque’s destruction departs from the principle of judicial counter-majoritarianism.

Nonsense! There was no mosque. Islam says a building is not a mosque unless it is used as a mosque. There is no 'principle of judicial counter-majoritarianism'. There is only an objection to unelected judges adversely reviewing majoritarian decisions of the Legislature or Executive.

This case was decided on the basis that a Deity with legal personality- in other words a member of a very small minority- should get back His property in accordance with Indian law.

The distinction between the electoral and the judicial, towards which the SC judgment is pushing us, requires further elaboration.

There is no such distinction. Electoral events can cause the Law, or even the Constitution, to change. Justiciability is narrowly defined unless Politicians themselves prefer to kick the can down the road into the Courts. However the Bench has grown wary of 'activism'. So have the Left-Liberals. The thing is a double edged sword.

Let us begin historically.
Should India treat its Muslims the same way as Pakistan was dealing with its Hindus?

No- because Pakistan is going down the toilet. Bangladesh has overtaken it economically.
India should treat its Muslims the way successful Democracies- like America- treats its Muslims.

This question repeatedly arose in the early years of freedom when India’s Constitution was debated. Supported by Ambedkar, Nehru argued: “Whatever the provocation from Pakistan and whatever the indignities and horrors inflicted on non-Muslims there, we have to deal with (our) minority in a civilised manner. We must give them security and the rights of citizens in a democratic state. If we fail to do so, we shall have a festering sore which will eventually poison the whole body politic.”

Jinnah similarly said that non-Muslims would be accorded equal treatment in Pakistan'. Nehru was not able to prevent massive ethnic cleansing of Indian Muslims.

Earlier, critiquing Jinnah, Ambedkar argued that constitutional and institutional safeguards could easily be devised to check majoritarianism and protect minority rights. That Hindus are a majority, said Ambedkar, does not automatically lead to Hindu rule.

Ambedkar also proposed that Caste Hindus receive less representation so that Dalits and Muslims would have a majority. So what? He may have failed as a politician but he became a Boddhisattva.

India’s Constitution thus developed a charter of minority rights — educational, cultural, religious — and gave no special privileges to the Hindu majority.

Why is there a Directive Principle in the Constitution regarding cow protection? Was it because Muslims and Christians have a rooted objection to beef?

On paper, various Pakistani Constitutions have afforded non-Muslims and linguistic and other minorities the same rights as Muslims. This did not prevent massive ethnic cleansing and the genocide in the East Wing.

Secularism came to be defined not only as equal rights for all, regardless of religious affiliation, but also as comprising special minority rights on the assumption that minority numbers alone would not allow them to protect their interests in a democracy.

By whom was it defined in this way? Indira Gandhi? The Sikhs may beg to differ.

This constitutional settlement was further bolstered by the electoral realities of India. Until 2008, 81 parliamentary constituencies of India were more than 20 per cent Muslim (including 10 that were Muslim-majority) and 126 seats were 10-20 per cent Muslim. Thus, in 38 per cent of parliamentary seats, Muslim voters could play an important role.

Only if they had a Muslim party- like the Kerala Muslim League. Otherwise, they were simply a vote bank.

Even if mainstream politicians had anti-Muslim feelings, these electoral realities would partly check them.

After 9/11, people all over the world saw Muslims in a different light. 'Electoral realities' could not prevent a change in the attitude of Governments towards Muslims. At first, the majority was placated by the spectacle of far away countries being bombed to smithereens. But that strategy backfired. Democracies began taking action against their own Muslim populations- things like banning the hijab and so forth.

The 2008 redrawing of constituencies has most probably not significantly changed Muslim proportions.
This long-lasting electoral logic was fundamentally altered in 2014 and 2019. The BJP came to power with only 8 per cent of the Muslim vote each time, an outcome inconceivable under the earlier electoral calculus.

The BJP first came to power in 1998. It fell because of the economy- not because of the post-Godhra riots. Modi did well in Gujerat without any Muslim votes though they are ten percent of the population. U.P has elected Yogi Adityanath though its Muslims percentage may be double that of Gujerat.

Why? The answer is that the BJP is perceived as clean, non-casteist, meritocratic as opposed to dynastic, and better at 'last mile delivery'.

The key to this transformation was the consolidation of the Hindu vote.

But it was consolidated on the basis of better Governance.

The BJP received 37.4 per cent vote in 2019; roughly 35 per cent was Hindu. Compared to 2014, BJP’s vote went up in all caste categories, including Dalits.

This is because the BJP alone is truly anti-casteist.

Muslims can play an important electoral role only if the Hindu vote is sufficiently caste-cleaved.

Nonsense! Indian Muslims are highly patriotic and religious. They want the scourge of caste-discrimination to disappear from the face of the earth. No Muslim wants any community anywhere to maintain this Satanic institution. The way forward for Muslims is to form their own parties and put forward excellent candidates. We want to hear a promising young Muslim make the sort of speech Modi makes- full of common sense and patriotic sentiment. He must say 'I want to be your MLA because I will do a better job for you than my rivals. Then I want to be your CM because I will make this State the most prosperous in India. Then I want to be PM because I want to raise India up to the level of China.' This is what Hindus want to hear. The PM is the team captain. We don't care about his religion. We just want him to win the test match. Politics should be like Cricket or Bollywood. If a Khan does a better job than a Kapoor, we queue up for his movie. In the old days, Khans would keep Hindu names like 'Dilip Kumar'. Then they saw there was no such need. The same must happen in politics. If a Muslim party is better at governance, then it can attract caste-based vote banks. Over time, its support base will dispense with caste based labels and emphasize purely economic issues. Consider the support attracted by the Christian Democrats in Germany from people who have never been to Church. If the C.Ds do a better job than the S.Ds, they get elected.

Analytically, Hindu consolidation and Muslim irrelevance are two sides of the same electoral coin.

Rubbish! Muslim irrelevance arises from the fact that even the most able Muslim leader is just a client of some corrupt or cretinous dynast. They are essentially saying 'vote for me because I am the chamcha of this family'. Suppose a cricket player says 'select me for the team because I am the sycophant of the Captain'. Our opinion of him would fall. Instead of scoring runs or taking wickets he is going to be lifting the massive testicles of his patron. He is not going to be the man of the match- because then his patron will get jealous.

If Hindu consolidation goes further, Muslims will become electorally even more irrelevant.

Islam rejects this view. A people's fate rests in its own hands. The Holy Quran declares-  Indeed, Allah will not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves. 

Hindus can help promising young Muslims by telling them frankly- 'aim for the highest office. Then people will trust you. Each job you get, you will ensure it is done perfectly so that you can get promoted. If you have it in your head that you can never be CM or PM then sooner of later you will become lazy or corrupt or endorse the laziness or corruption of others.'

A PM is not a god. He is not a King. He is just a public servant. Is there any defect in Islam such that only Indian Muslims are unable to discharge the duties of any public office? Don't be silly. Who thought a Black man- called 'Barak Hussein Obama'- would be US president? Look at Ireland. Their P.M has the very Maharashtrian name of Varadkar. Also he is Gay! 

In Kerala, many Hindus and Christians have been regularly voting for Kerala Muslim League. Why? It has built up a good reputation re. Governance.

We can’t still be sure this would happen.

I can be very sure that Indian Muslims won't become irrelevant because they have good character and much to contribute. If they listen to idiots like Varshney they will become fatalistic. If, instead, they read the Holy Quran, they will get energy and inspiration to improve the lot of the people of their area. This will get them elected. Look at the way that Muslims organized to improve education for UPSC candidates. The aim was to raise Muslim representation. This was good for India because we want good, 'non-dynastic', officers who are more in touch with the problems of ordinary people. Something similar is required in politics. Don't rely on quotas from dynastic parties because they will soon be brought down by their own corruption and incompetence.

But even if Hindu electoral consolidation remains at the current level, India’s Muslims would need the judiciary’s counter-majoritarianism to safeguard their interests.

This is the problem with the 'libtards'. They think Women and Muslims and Dalits and so forth are little better than cattle. They have to be protected by a paternalistic Sarkar- or in this case a paternalistic Judiciary.

Thankfully, Muslims can easily reject this narrative by looking at Holy Scripture. By their own efforts, they can rise to any height and, in doing so, they can raise up the condition of their country and the world.

If the judiciary bows to the executive and legislature, supporting majoritarian logic, Jinnah’s fears will be affirmed, Ambedkar’s constitutional optimism nullified, and Nehru’s prediction about a “festering sore” might also come true. Production of Muslim helplessness is most unlikely to strengthen India, or its polity.

Who is 'producing Muslim helplessness' here? Only Varshney. He and he alone thinks that Muslims have survived in India, not because they are a very productive, cultured, and decent element in Society, but because of the kindness of Nehru and his dynasty. This sort of Casteist arrogance is the most despicable aspect of the Indian Ivy League intellectual.

I recall my violent reaction, on first getting employed by a big firm, to being accosted by some people who were concerned that I may have been experiencing racist discrimination. I told them to fuck off, because if I'd ever came across the thing I'd have kicked the fucker's head in there and then. The story got around and made me popular. The fact is, nobody wants to associate with a coward or a weakling. By depicting Muslims as weak and unable to protect themselves, Varshney is hurting Indian Muslims. The truth is, they have fought their corner with courage and ingenuity. We like that because it makes them more trustworthy partners in Development. Now, young Muslims must take the next step which is to organize socially and politically to address 'last mile' problems. Let them aspire to lead governing coalitions rather than just be a vote-bank or spineless client or sycophant.

By contrast, all Iyers must immediately rend their garments and rush weeping into the streets complaining of being anally raped by Iyengars. The Law must protect Iyers because they are completely stupid. They should immediately receive not just 'Educationally Backward Status' but be classed as hopelessly mentally retarded. Thus, we should gain quotas. Also, Congress Party should select me as its leader coz I am demonstrably stupider than even Rahul Baba.

Jai Hind! Jai Bhim! Jai me!