Monday 18 July 2022

Nandini Sundar on Draupadi Murmu

 Nadnini Sundar, daughter of two IAS officers and herself an Oxford and Columbia alumni, writes in the Wire- which is run by her husband- an American citizen whose dad was a corrupt IAS office- of Draupadi Murmu's unsuitability for the post of Commander in Chief. Why? The answer is that, according to Leftist ideology, 'tribal women' should get naked and demand to be raped by soldiers. It is wrong for them to take the salute of the armed forces. 

At one time, Sundar and Varadarajan were considered smart and well informed. Now they are considered deracinated and dependent on a complacent, virtue signaling, Western liberal establishment which has lost power and influence across the globe on an unprecedented scale.

Why did this happen? The answer is that Sundar and Varadarajan lived in a make-believe world. They had zero knowledge of their own ancestral Hindu culture. Consider the following- 

In the Mahabharata, the strongest character on the Pandava side is Draupadi.

The strongest female in that epic is Satyavati, mother of Vyasa and through him the ancestress of both the Pandavas and the Kauravas. Draupati was born to take revenge for her father's humiliation at the hands of Drona. She is considered to have triggered the conflict by laughing at Duryodhana when he mistook a polished floor for a pool of water.  

She challenges Yudhisthira’s right to stake her at dice, asking how a slave could stake another human being.

She does so because she is weak and powerless not because she is strong. Still, she raised a legal point which had diplomatic implications- if she was wrongly enslaved, her father would have a casus belli-  and thus swayed the Court in favor of the Pandavas. 

She was ostensibly ‘rescued’ by Krishna, but her pride and courage in facing that assembly of hostile men and arguing the legal point showed that it was not she who needed saving but the men who were dishonouring her.

This is foolish. The men had the power. She did not. On the other hand, she was the daughter of a powerful King who might well avenge her death or dishonour and claim the Kingdom in her name precisely because of the clever legal point she had raised.

Similarly, in Mahasweta Devi’s short story, Draupadi, Dopdi Mejhen, a Santhal woman, raped and wounded by the security forces,

in 1971, it was Bengali women- especially Hindus who were being raped and killed on an industrial scale by the  Pakistan Army. Devi's people had fled from Dacca precisely because they didn't fancy being 'raped and wounded' by Muslims

stands unarmed and naked before the commander and asks why she should be ashamed, when “there isn’t a man here that I should be ashamed.”

That's bad English. Why were Indian students forced to read this shite? 

And for the first time, the commander is “terribly afraid.”

Mahashweta's people were being raped and ethnically cleansed from East Bengal when she wrote this shite. People laughed at her because Santals- unlike Bengali buddhijivis- fight back when attacked. They don't do stupid shit- e.g. standing around naked while demanding to be raped. Why not humbly beseech everybody to shit on your tits instead? Wouldn't that be evidence of even greater power and strength? Why are Ukrainians fighting Putin's goons? Why are they not stripping of their clothes and demanding to be sodomized so as to strike fear into the hearts of the invaders?  

It is these Draupadis the BJP and RSS want to obliterate,

Yes. The BJP is nationalistic. They want Indian women to join the Army. They don't want them to demand more rape or buggery.  The plain fact is that rapists want everybody to know what they did. They just don't want to be punished for it. That's not 'shame'. That's simply survival instinct. 

by removing Mahasweta Devi’s story from the DU English Honours course in August 2021

The story is shitty enough in Bengali. The English translation is vile. Why force Indians to read stupid shit about how demanding to be raped will throw a scare into villains?  

or demonstrating against a play in Haryana Central University in 2016.

the play showed Indian soldiers as rapists. That is anti-national. Why not simply show Gandhi and Nehru and Azad as sexual perverts whose evil machinations were defeated by Muhammad Ali Jinnah? True, non-Muslim Indian women may like being raped. They may demand more rape and insist that everybody shit on their tits. But Muslims of the sub-continent show no such inclination.  

So when they now tell us Droupadi Murmu –

who doesn't want anybody to be raped in India 

soon to be India’s first Adivasi president – represents their commitment to the empowerment of tribals, this claim should be taken with a large pinch of salt.

Why? It is a fact that being a Governor and then getting promoted to the Presidency is empowering. True, Sundar may think that being raped is empowering. But she has shit for brains.  


The reality of the BJP’s “sabka saath, sabka vikas” slogan for the Adivasis is that they must sacrifice their lands and resources for other people’s vikas.

They should be demanding to be raped instead.  

In naming their single teacher schools after the Adivasi, Eklavya

a tribal King renowned for his martial prowess and 'Guru bhakti'- (devotion to the preceptor) 

– who was made to sacrifice his thumb for the greater glory of the Kshatriya, Arjun –

he could have refused. The fact that he didn't showed his Guru-bhakti. But he remained a very powerful General. That is why Krishna had to kill him.  

we see the real place that the Sangh assigns to Adivasis, or “Vanvasis” as they call them.

Adivasi means 'original inhabitant'. But Sundar and me are original inhabitants of India same as Smt. Murmu. However we live in towns. Vanvasi means those who live in the forests. But, all the various Brahmin lineages claim to have once dwelled in forest Ashrams.  


Under the BJP government in Chhattisgarh, 2003-18, villages were burnt, and thousands killed in Salwa Judum and subsequent operations.

Mahendra Karma who created Salwa Judum was a Congress politician. He had been a Minister in Digvijay's government.  Naxals- who were not adivasis but caste Hindus from outside the area- had killed his brother and 20 of his relatives.  

The first wave of forest evictions that led to the struggle for what eventually became the Forest Rights Act of 2006 happened in Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s regime,

The Chief Minister, Raman Singh was BJP, but Karma was his ally and in his Cabinet despite being Congress. The fact is Naxals were outsiders. All the local people wanted them gone.  

and Modi’s government has just made the Act infructuous by issuing new rules under the Forest Conservation Act which make Scheduled Tribe consent the last requirement for forest diversion to industry rather than the first.

But the State Government remains in charge. It is only the Centre's permission which has been dispensed with.  

Mining had already benefitted from an earlier 2017 dilution of rules. Even though it could not overturn the social impact assessment and consent clauses of the Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act 2013 the Modi regime, along with BJP states, has succeeded in watering it down.

The activists are sad because they have lost the chance to endlessly obstruct development. Why are they not demanding to be raped?  


The RSS refuses to recognise Adivasi religion as distinct and worthy of respect;

because Hinduism recognizes Adivasi religion as its own bedrock.  Sundar may think her ancestors were blonde Nordics. Her complexion suggests otherwise.

and Christian Adivasis have suffered attacks on their places of worship.

because they despise the indigenous religious traditions and make no secret of this. 

It is true that the RSS fronts, the Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram and Vidya Bharati, run a chain of schools and hostels in Adivasi areas, filling a critical need where state provision has been lacking. But in the process, Adivasi children are converted into Hindutva followers, and the “social service” has a clear electoral value.

Which is cool if Christians or Naxals or Naxal Christians are doing it. But if the RSS does it, then the thing is very sinister.  

The RSS-BJP cares little about Adivasis, except when it comes to mobilising them as foot soldiers against Muslims and Christians, as in Gujarat 2002 and Kandhamal, Odisha, in 2008 respectively.

Sundar has contempt for Adivasis. Anybody can brainwash them and turn them into 'foot soldiers'. They should demand to be raped instead.  

Adivasi numbers in prisons – as convicts and undertrials – is much higher than their percentage in the population.

Adivasis don't like criminals. They will catch such people and hand them over to the authorities unless it is more convenient to kill them instead.


The choice of Murmu as presidential candidate must be seen in light of the BJP’s outreach to Adivasis in order to strengthen the “Hindu” fold and win elections.

Whereas Sundar's outreach to Adivasis involved shitting on them.  

The BJP clearly had electoral calculations in mind, such as the approaching elections in Odisha and Chhattisgarh, and the Adivasi vote more broadly in 2024.

Whereas Sundar & Co have no 'electoral calculations' in mind. They think shitting on the Hindu majority will help the Left.  


But at least the BJP recognises the importance of an Adivasi constituency. While presidents are increasingly reduced to rubber stamps, choosing an Adivasi rubber stamp over other rubber stamps matters, at least symbolically.

Which is why Sundar does not want Smt. Murmu to be President. Why can't adivasis understand that they should be clamoring for rape?  

It was the NDA which supported PA Sangma

a former CM of Meghalaya and former Speaker of the Lok Sabha. Why is Sundar pretending a man of such high caliber was nominated for symbolic reasons? The fact is he had allied first with Sharad Pawar and then Mamta after breaking with Sonia's Congress. His nomination came from the AIADMK and then the BJD. Pawar opposed him and so he resigned from the NCP.  

as its presidential candidate against Pranab Mukherjee, making this the second time they have proposed a tribal candidate.

Sundar is giving the BJP too much credit. They backed Sangma but did not propose him. As things turned out Mukherjee got on well with Modi.  

Murmu’s CV is no better or worse than that of Pratibha Patil,

It is better. She didn't cook meals for Indira. There are no corruption allegations against members of her family.  Still, Patil proved a good choice. It was Hamid Ansari- her Veep- who harmed the country. 

or most of the men elected to the post. The presidents who really upheld the Constitution stand out because they were so few.

Very true. More Presidents must stand outside Rashtrapati Bhavan demanding to be raped.  

In all the years that the Congress was able to get a president of its choice, it never bothered to nominate a Scheduled Tribe person. It is not as if the Congress did not have any candidates to choose from – take, for instance, the Adivasi Mahasabha leader Jaipal Singh,

a gifted hockey-player and Oxford graduate and ICS officer. He originated the idea of a separate Jharkhand state where Adivasis would be the majority- a dream which became a reality under Vajpayee.  He was a great man and a great patriot who passed away too soon.

who was co-opted into the Congress, the late Rishang Keishing, former chief minister of Manipur, Kishore Chandra Deo, former minister of tribal affairs,

but a 'royal'. Still, there can be no question that, like Keishing, he is a brilliant man. 

or Arvind Netam, former minister of state in the Indira Gandhi and Narasimha Rao cabinets.

Again, a 'royal'. It seems Sundar sees the world through elitist eyes. Royals and Oxbridge alumni should be President. Smt. Murmu should not because though from a good family and well educated she lacks a penis.  


Yashwant Sinha

a clever IAS official who entered politics but didn't make it all the way to the top. We were surprised to hear that he had an 'ideology'.  

is correct to say that he and Murmu represent different ideologies

Most Indians only took notice of Smt. Murmu when she refused assent to two bills which would have diluted tribal rights in land. She said ' Three things are needed for development: education, money and power. But tribals only have land. They feel when land is there they can work and will be able to live. But if land is taken away, tribals will not be able to survive. They consider land as God. For centuries, tribal people have been closely linked with their lands, forests and rivers. It has always been their way of life. To alienate them from this ecosystem would be a crime. Development agenda should not lose sight of this fact. Tribal communities should not be alienated from their lands.'

The truth is all Hindus feel this same connection to the mother land as a holy land. We must protect the rivers, forests and mountains. 

but it is blinkered of him to say that her Adivasi identity is irrelevant and he has done more for Adivasis as finance minister in the Vajpayee government than she has.

She is much younger. Still, she did a good job as a member of Naveen Patnaik's cabinet back then.

He might at least have had the humility to acknowledge that his success had a lot to do with his ‘upper caste’ male background.

Like Sundar's parents, he was an IAS officer. But women of that background can do even better in politics.  

In an ideal world, if education, health and resources were equalised, an Adivasi president should have been as likely as any other candidate, requiring no tokenism, from right or left.

No they would have a much smaller chance because their proportion of the population is much smaller. 


Sadly, when it comes to treating Adivasis, the Congress and other parties, save the Left, have scarcely been any better.

The Left in its more benign incarnation urges them to demand rape. In its more militant form, it kills them.  

In the name of national security and “development”, the Congress has been responsible for massive human rights violations against tribal populations, both in Northeast and central India.

As has the CPI and CPM and the naxals and so forth.  

Much of the progressive legislation of the UPA period came about due to pressure from the Left.

Does Sundar mean the 123 agreement? Cool.  


Scheduled Tribes are 8.6% of the country’s population and the only section for whom the presidential function directly matters to their identity – since the 5th Schedule mandates the president, through the governors, to look after Scheduled Areas.

 But States have considerable countervailing powers. Many refuse to have any Scheduled Areas.

As Governor of Jharkhand, Murmu’s record of defending adivasi rights is mixed. She returned bills proposed by the BJP regime that aimed at changing the land tenure legislation – CNTA (Chhotanagapur Tenancy Act) and SPTA (Santhal Paragana Tenancy Act) – to make it easier for outsiders to take away Adivasi land,

she was justified in doing so because of the public agitation over the issue.  

but thereafter she quickly passed anti-Adivasi changes in the Land Acquisition Act

she couldn't pass anything. She could ask the administration to reconsider and give an account of how Adivasis would benefit. That's what she did.  

as well as the Freedom of Religion Bill 2017 which criminalises conversion. Perhaps she had been read the riot act.

Or perhaps she was doing her constitutional duty.  


It may be in vain, but one can only hope that despite being a loyal daughter of the RSS,

Prashant Bhushan spread this canard on the basis of a doctored photo. 

Murmu will rise to the occasion.

She will discharge her constitutional duties with diligence and grace. She won't do stupid shit of the sort that Sundar approves.  

The Draupadi of the Mahabharata was also a loyal wife and daughter,

This stupid woman does not know that Smt. Murmu has tragically lost her husband and children. Her parents too are dead.  

but when faced with injustice, she dared to ask uncomfortable questions to all.

Asking questions is useless. Draupadi made a legal point. The Kauravas were estopped from claiming her for a legal reason. This meant that she herself- or her father- had a claim to the throne. Killing or raping her would be a casus belli. 

What Sundar has been doing is talking bollocks. Nobody is made uncomfortable by the questions raised by a fool. The Supreme Court now repents its decision to side with her in the 2011 case. Removing security forces from Naxal afflicted areas was a bad idea. The carnage got worse. Thus the police were ready to frame 'urban naxals' and chuck them in jail. The bench has just fined Himanshu Kumar 5 lakhs for trying to keep the pot boiling on an old case without presenting new facts. Questions don't matter. Facts do. Smt. Murmu focuses on facts. Sundar dreams of a world where women will ask uncomfortable questions like 'wouldn't you like to gang rape me and then shit on my titties?' Sadly, adivasis are brave and sensible people and have lost interest in the Sundars of the world.  

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