Modi wins Trust

‘India wins yet again’, tweets PM Modi - 23/05/2019

The tweet says it all. Here is a man who dedicates everything to the country. Nothing for self all for the people.
The people of the country completely understand this man's commitment to the cause of India and the results are there to see. This is a vote of trust.

For the people trust is gained through delivery of services. Toilets, homes, Ujwala, Ujala, Last mile electric connections, PM Kisan and more. Each of this service hit the beneficiary. Tangible benefits build trust. The voter listened to everyone and decided that the man who delivered is trustworthy than a man whose party promised NYAY for 60 years and did little.

They trusted him despite demonetization, which was supposed to have caused difficulties to all. They trusted him on GST which had impact on businesses in the short to medium term. They trusted him when he said there is no wrong doing in Rafale. Chowkidar Chor jibe did not stick. People infact felt opposition was besmirching an honest person. They trusted him in all his decisions since they saw honesty in each of his actions. The opposition missed the point on trust. For them trust can be purchased by peddling lies. It was not to be the people turned out to be smarter than the entire opposition.

The people of the country know he has built a stronger India than it was in 2014. They did not forget Doklam, Uri or Balakaot. Here is India finally shrugging of its shyness to show its might on the world platform. People like their country to be strong. They saw the misplaced pacifism of the congress with Pakistan and China. They enjoyed the moments when India secured wins in Uri and Balakot. They have seen the respect of their country grow in the league of nations. They saw a tireless man travelling all around to sell India. He made friends and positioned India as a nation that cannot be pushed away. They were pleased when china came around to declare Hafiz sayeed a terrorist. They attributed all these successes to Mr.Modi's work.

Modi the karma yogi did tapas in the last 5 years to change India. He pushed the bureaucracy, he pushed his colleagues to get things done. He knew time was short and he needs to prove. His politics is not old style. The opposition does not get it even now. Their only allegation is he is divisive, people do not agree. When he reached out with " man ki baat" to the people they mocked him. When he launched Swacch bharat they said he should be better things. When he made Yogi adityanath the CM of UP they criticized him as divisive and communal. They did read the killer instinct in the man.
The opposition damaged themselves asking for bodies in Balakot, they damaged their credibility with both the minority and majority communities by not supporting triple talaq (who is communal?), they damaged themselves crying foul on Rafale. Finally, they damaged themselves badly forming the Mahagatbandhan. People saw the crowd calling themselves as leaders and quietly voted for the man they loved.
Mr. Modi has his work cut out for his second term. I am sure he has plans in his mind and he will go about executing them with precision. I am sure these plans are as bold and daring (Ram mandir, 35 A etc). Meanwhile the opposition will be busy wasting their energies on faulty EVMs, calling for secular India etc etc. they should instead work and come back to the electorate on thier idea of India.

Here's wishing Mr.Modi an even greater success in his second term.

An unlikely alliance

The termination of the PDP-BJP alliance is not surprising anyone. It was a marriage of convenience and was not expected to last the full term.

The PDP under Mehbooba was flirting with danger trying to appease the Huriyyat and calling for talks with Pakistan which is actively promoting cross border terrorism. She also lifted the cases against stone pelters and has been pushing for a softer approach towards handling terror. Obviosuly this has emboldened the Hurriyat and other hawks who are hell bent on breaking Kashmir from India. She has unwisely pushed for a ceasefire during the Ramadan season and the out come has been disastorous. Her policy of resettling Rohingyas in the Jammu region seems to be an effort to change the demographics of the region. The biggest failure of Mehbooba has been her inability to get the political action on the ground started. Her hobnobbing with the Huriyyat did not help her case.

The BJP on the other hand has been pushing for a muscular approach as its Kashmir policy. Purely in terms of eliminating terrorists it has acheived success with as many as 207 being eliminated but it has fell short on other things that people expected out of it. The Jammu region which voted for it in big numbers is obviosuly upset with it for not having addressed any of their concerns. Resettlment of Kashmiri pandits as an agenda has not started. Rohingyas refugees resettlement in the Jammu region is a big concern for them. Needless to say nothing has moved on article 370 and 35A.

The Governer's rule is a good opportunity to straighten things, first and foremost the Huriyyat has to be fixed. Thye had a free run for many years and this should stop. The NIA should complete the terror funding investigations on the Huriyyat and prosecute them. Under the Mehbooba regime the army was working with limitations, they should be given a free hand to deal with terrorists and their sympathisers.

The central government has given lot of funds to J&K for developmental works. Funds should now be fullly utilized to start projects and generate jobs for the youth. Recent issues like Kathua rape case should be investigated and the accused pusnished. There was no transparency in this case under the PDP regime.

The BJP has also work to do with respect to Pakistan. Diplomatic isolation can only achieve some results. We still have the MFN status with Pakistan why ? it should be terminated. Border trade is still on and is a big risk with infiltration possibiliites. India still has a dovish approach with Paksitan. What is the use of shouting that Pakistan is a rogue state while having trade and diplomatic relaitons with them. The Paksitan embassy in India is a spying center and should be clsoed. There should be muscularity in external affairs too.

There was one Special ops that was carried out on terror hang outs in 2016, why no such operation two years after the first one. Such strategies cant be one time events. India should get its act together and go for the kill against terror and restart the political process on the ground in the next year.

Third time Thrid Front

With the 2019 elections nearing there is jostling in the oppositon to provide leadership to face off Modi and BJP. Telengana chief minister KCR has thrown his towel in the ring announcing his intent to provide leadership. He declared his interntions to lead the country. His son is waiting in the wings to take over the state and he has to make space.

KCR's party TRS went bonkers and the cadre celebrated his intent of providing leadership to the country boisterously. KCR called Mamata, Stalin etc and recieved support from them on the idea of third front. KCR claimed wide support for an anti-Modi group for 2019. He started the ground work and met Mamata. Its hard to read and manage Mamata, though she recieved KCR well and spent time with him she did not go to the town talking about thrid front as a great idea -means she is not convinced. The UP leaders Mayawati (BSP) and Akhilesh (SP) are notorious and will not do anything that will project a national leader other than themselves. Maywati sure nurtures the idea of being a PM, so does Mulayam perhaps his son Akhilesh too.

Sharad Pawar(NCP) is the master of the game and will not let an upstart like KCR to get away with ideas, Pawar started his own idea of a Third front and is meeting people. He may do a better job given his experience and National stature. Time will tell. The communists are nowhere and will join any front whcih will give them relevance and hope to live another day. TDP is quiet, Chandra Babu knows about the outcome so he is focussing on saving his seat in 2019. Shiv Sena despite rumblings will not endeavor into this kichidi front.

Third front in the Indian context is fraught with dangers. It is a battle for being the King of the forest.There are too many lions in the third front forest. It was attempted as National front under the leadership of V.P.Singh with an assortment of parties. The late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi dubbed it as a National affront which it ended as. They did a shabby job of running the country.

Then came the United Front in 1996, again an assorment of parties, H.D.Deve Gowda and I.K.Gujral were PM's in this miserable outing to run the country.

A bunch of parties with varied interests, diferent ideological moorings, hatred towards Congress and now BJP coming together to get power is what Third front is about. The last two outings were total disasters and there is no reason to believe why this one will not be. They may still form a a front time will what it will end up as.

KCR is under some pressure on his home turf with Congress giving a good fight. He pours vitriol on Congress on a daily basis and is scarred of Modi. He has two enemies to fight and so he is cleverly using the Third front plot to elevate himself as a National leader. His promise of Bangaru Telengana is now left for his son to achieve.

The Battle for Sanskrit – Rajiv Malhotra - in a 1000 words

Rajiv Malhotra ji is a famous Indologist who is working tirelessly to defend Santana dharma and its traditions. He is leading from the front in providing a well-researched fight back to western Indologists on various topics concerning Hindu dharma. His latest work “The Battle for Sanskrit” talks about the sinister motives of the western institutions and scholars to disparage Sanskrit as a language and its influence on Bhartiya sanskriti. The beauty of Rajiv Malhotra’s writings is that he calls for discussions and debates on all areas of disagreements and not confrontation.

My attempt is to summarize the contents of the well-researched book in about a 1000 words, you should be able to read this in 10 mins. It is important for all us and those of Indian heritage to understand our selves better and become owners of our heritage –

• Indians have given away control of our language (in this case Sanskrit studies), culture and heritage to western institutions and individuals. No serious attempt by India, Indians or its institutions to establish seats of learning and research to protect and build our heritage. Through our neglect they became insiders (experts on our subjects) and we outsiders (trying to catch up to defend)

• Western scholars allege that Sanskrit was used a tool for political domination and suppression of masses, for many decades they spread such views in Indian universities and other channels to gain credibility. Indian traditionalists did not care to debate this point of view for a long time, did not create a platform to fight back the western interpretations of Sanskrit. We ignored them to our peril

• Western scholars with their limited understanding have brain washed a generation of Indians that our Vedic and other systems of knowledge are myths and non sensical

• Our scholars and teachers did not engage in Uttara paksha (debate) with these scholars and institutions to challenge their deductions. We ignored them for too long while they wrote tomes of analysis about our Sanskrit literature and hijacked our heritage. We are now ill equipped to fight back

• They incorrectly claim Sanskrit was used as political tool used for social abuse. This is due to their poor understanding of our heritage, but we never engaged them in a debate to correct their point of view

• We did not make them understand that Sanskrit was and is an integrated component of a Hindus life - Prayer, mantras, culture, built into our vernaculars and in many other areas of life. Though it is delayed it is our sacred duty now to protect and bring it back to life

• Western Indologists with a sinister motive deride Sanskrit propagating that it was used as a tool for social oppression, that it perpetuates elitism and that mantras and yagnas as meaningless. For us since ages it is an integrating factor

• Traditionalists argue there is no truth that Sanskrit was used as a tool for oppression and see it as a tool for liberation for all human beings. Traditionalists too are critical of any kind of social oppression and they do not see Sanskrit as the vehicle for the same

• Western scholars base their study and analysis on written texts, they believe oral traditions as unreliable, they also mischievously propagate that writing started in India after Buddhism came while the data shows a different truth

• Western scholars view Sanskrit as a foreign language brought to India by so called Aryans. They claim Sanskrit spread across Asia by kings for political purposes to wield control over public, for traditionalists it is an indigenous language which has played a major role in development of vernaculars and there was enrichment of both Sanskrit and vernaculars due to this

• Western scholars degrade shastras since they are derived from Vedas and hence they assume they carry the limitations of the source (lack creativity), they believe kavyas have some originality since they have some creative freedom, traditionalists dismiss such distinction and claim both shastras and kavyas have the same source but their expression only differs (kavyas are poetic, shastras are texts)

• Outsiders allege that European Indologists took the ideas of social oppression from Sanskrit texts and used the same against their population (Nazis against Jews), such interpretation is rejected by traditionalists saying infact Europeans came with such a conditioning and misinterpreted out sacred texts

• Misinterpretation of our scared text Ramayana and Mahabharata, for instance Sheldon Pollock says that Ramayana encourages “othering” Us vs Them ( rama vs ravana) which encourages bigotry, obviously he takes a myopic view of the ramayana and Mahabharata

• Western thought tries to highlight differences in the hindu society due to caste, and between Vedic and Buddhist thought, traditionalists argue such differences if any are part of a broader continuum in the evolutionary process and no western intervention is required to correct the same

• We should map Sanskrit to ancient languages like mandarin, Arabic and Persian and work and must revive Sanskrit ourselves and not allow western scholars to dictate us the same (western scholars try to map Sanskrit to Latin and other dead languages)

• Establish higher learning institutions of Sanskrit in India such that our bright youth stay back and contribute towards integrating their studies with the larger society

• Deploy Purva-paksha & Uttara-paksha methodologies vigorously to defend our point of view instead of meek surrender

• Rajiv gives the way forward –
 Revive Sanskrit ecosystem in a holistic way - battle for Sanskrit, Sanskrit and dharma are interrelated. ( organizations like sanskrita bharati are trying to revive use of Sanskrit)
 Non- translatable Sanskrit terms must enter main stream – sanskritize english
 Shastras must be seen as a platform for innovation
 New itihas and smritis must be written - for example traumatic events over the last 1000 years in India (invasions etc)
 Sacred philology must compete against political liberation philology – that Sanskrit cannot be divorced from vedas and other sacred texts
 Revive purva paksha tradition
 Encounter with Christianity, Islam – Hindu understanding of Islam and Christianity to engage in debates through purva-paksha, uttara-paksha process
 Encounter with western secularism – do a purva-paksha of the west ( question and debate their models, ideas etc)
 Develop institutions to conduct trainings and research on our heritage
 Contest the use of Buddhism as a wedge against Hinduism & mischievously changing chronology of hindu texts – disprove this through research
 Allegation of Sanskrit’s death – debate this with data and the attempts being made to revive the same

And many other steps to provide fitting response to the well organized western scholars and institutions.

Gratitude – all content from Rajiv Malhotra’s (The battle for Sanskrit)

Why they hate Modi

It is Modi vs all in the Indian politics. To extend it can be BJP vs all but it is the name Modi that sends shivers down the opposition. He is hated, vilified, berated and singled out for abuse by the opposition. They are scarred of his oration, his charisma, his presence, his organization skills, his ability to speak more or little based on need and finally his name itself. He is a nightmare for the opposition.

He has won all that is of essence since coming to power four years ago. They are not able to break the fortress called Modi. He is solid, brave and intimidating. His study of his country, his people’s emotions and their needs is spot on. He may have made mistakes but the people are unwilling to breach fortress Modi yet. This is the key thing point the opposition is failing to get. Just crying hoarse about Modi will not bring results. What is Modi representing which they are not able to?

Honesty, endearing (listen to man ki baat), execution, result oriented, clear vision, unsullied, risk taking and in spirit and deed sab ka saat . Where is one party of opposition leader who can come close.

They thought they got him in Gujarat how accurately has he gauged the people’s emotions and slogged it out in the last couple of days to swing it to BJP. He planned the North-East assault not now but when he took office and here we see the results. BJP got copious seats in Christian majority Nagaland. Is he secular or not? If he is not secular why will the Christians vote for him in NE? The opposition is a confused lot. They are searching for reasons for his success and are throwing a lot mud at him and the BJP hoping something will stick. It is not their hands are getting dirty.

Mamata is scarred that BJP has reached her backyard, she is doing everything that is needed to stop BJP in West Bengal which includes losing Hindi run schools. KCR from Telangana too is making noises on third front to take on Modi and BJP. He is aware of the past experiments which ended in the dustbin of history as failures. He is afraid Amit Shah may train his sights on Telangana. Shiv Sena pulled out to keep their relevance in Maharashtra.

So as we enter the penultimate year of NDAs term the opposition is as broken as they were in 2014 after the loss of the general election. Time they realize hatred towards Modi will get them nowhere what about talking about people’s aspirations for a change. Modi has done that and is reaping success.

Gaining strength

2014 was a historic mandate,a mandate against corruption, mandate for change. Narendra Modi captured the nations imagination with a call for development - sab ka saath sab ka vikas. After decades of disappointment, hearing the same old cliched slogans from the Congress people saw someone authentic in his call for developing India.

3 years later this man still remains sincere and purposeful to the cause of development, people are still voting in droves for him and his party. Setbacks in Delhi and Bihar apart he has led the party to success in other state elections and grown its base. BJP has effectively replaced Congress as the only party with Pan India presence,

While the opposition is stuck in its narrative of communal, secular, anti modi agenda, Modi and BJP have taken the nations agenda to a more purposeful direction. People are willing to accept the direction and risks being taken by the PM. Demonetization was supposed to be a death knell for the BJP, it turns out the opposite. People were willing to give chance to a man who is sincere is his efforts to clean up the society of blackmoney. They are willing to listen to "Man ki baat" on various aspects he is tackling to get the nation back to shape. Opposition parties should tune into "Man ki baat" the PM lays out his vision so articulately on the show.

Opposition led by Congress is deaf to the new India and its aspirations. Their leadership is tired and bereft of new ideas. How long can your agenda be anti-modi. While you were busy being that the BJP has caught the attention of the poor who now vouch for it as their vehicle for redemption from poverty. The PM has crossed the barrier of caste, religion and other divisions to be the pan India leader perhaps last seen at the time of Pandit Nehru.

Opposition for now seems to be happy with the students noise in DU, JNU etc trying to score brownie points talking about freedom of speech, they forget India is huge and beyond universities. Until they change their narrative they are condemned to be what they are - small

On Modis' Agenda and Clueless oppositon

The debate on demonetization is fascinating almost every Indian has a view, in general there seems to be an agreement that black money or economy has to end.

The questions is Narendra Modi winning the battle of perceptions on his attack. Opposition crying hoarse on an issue on which most Indians feel strongly will put them to risk if Modi comes out Successfully. Bad news for the opposition is 2 weeks into the process the lines are reducing. Things seems to be settling in. He has asked for 50 days.

By choosing corruption as an issue he has put himself above all the other pretenders to the throne. Public memory is terribly short, all hardships will be forgotten once things settle. And knowing Modi he will leave no stone unturned to bring down his opponents as insincere on corruption ( he is already on it). They are asking him to explain his actions in the parliament, better not since we have seen him take them to cleaners on a couple of occasions in parliament on Jan dhan and MNREGA.

Opposition is clueless on Modi's agenda and keeps responding to his grand plans. Swach Bharat, Jandhan, Surgical strikes, they are not able to blow holes in his agenda. They should try hard. Folks like Kejriwal instead of saying this is not enough fell to the hate Modi whatever he does campaign and lost the plot. He is no more the champion of anti-corruption.

Rahul, Mamata and Kejri shouting foul on Modi's mother of all initiatives is not helping, the aam admi is not responding to their calls for agitation (needless to say Government has to be swift in taking measures to ease the pain on the street). All said India has been waiting for some one to take this action for long ( justifiably common man believes the obstacle for his personal progress is corruption which is closely associated with black money).

Sure there are difficulties since India is a cash economy people cannot do a lot of things without cash.This will push little more of India to digital payments and transactions. The farmers will suffer, so the kirana wala, the auto driver etc but this well intentioned move will ultimately benefit the poor of the country ( good quality revenue and more tax collections). We have ignored the poor of this country for long, promising them a lot and delivering nothing, this act of the PM should cleanse the stables for building a cleaner India and hopefully a more equitable society.