Vilas Rao Deshmukh charms Muslims and Marathis at one go

Vilas Rao Deshmukh, the polished CM of Maharashtra dealt two very strong cards while making a statement at a function organized by the Federation of All Minority Educational Organisation.

With the elections in sight, he “reached out” in a few sweeping sentences both to the Muslims and the marathi manoos. The CM assured Muslims that they would be given more jobs in the police (?). He also urged the Muslims that they should learn Marathi along with Urdu as it was the official language of the state.

His statements appeasing the Muslims:

His statements appeasing the Marathis:

Mr Deshmukh, what do you mean by “more” jobs in the police? Are you trying to say that the police currently is predominantly Hindus and if that might be the case, they are incapable or unwilling to serve the Muslim community? Also if a Muslim is given a job in the police will he be able to perform his duties better only if he knows Marathi?

The situation is brilliant, nowadays politicians don’t even make any attempt to hide the fact that they are going after minority vote banks. They also are not ashamed to deal their regional cards, even the ones in power, the ones that hold responsible government positions. I have nothing against the Muslims and am all for giving them more jobs. I have nothing against people learning Marathi if they want to.

Vilas Rao Deshmukh looks quite the gentleman and speaks like one as well. This gentleman very quietly has played at appeasing both the minorities and the regional sentiments of Maharashtra. What next? I assume his next speech will be on atrocities against nuns. Or maybe it will be against Harbhajan for depicting the role of Ravan in a reality dance show recently.

Has anyone seen this CM or any CM address their whole state? Has anyone seen a CM address everyone assuring them that they will have more jobs, better roads, more educational facilities, reliable electricity and clean running water? It’s time we look beyond the two Rs (Region and Religion) Mr Deshmukh? These cards you are dealing are old and we are very bored of them. If you’re short on ideas, ask your son.

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When Hitler is Venerated

“No one will support his genocide of the Jews” – Raj Thackeray got two full pages in the Sunday’s edition of Mumbai Mirror. The “journalist” who managed to get Raj saheb to talk was none other than our dear Shobha De who had trouble asking the right questions of course given the size of the oversized reporter hat that she had put on. By the way FYI, A reporter hat seems oversized or not depending upon whether your head (read brain) is pea sized or bigger.

But Oh! Did Raj Thackeray pour out his heart, couldn’t resist the charms of the aging but nevertheless pretty author. Right from calling India Europe to praising Hitler, Raj shone all the way. Anyway – Here’s some excerpts from the interview.

SD: Today is non-violence day. What is your message?

RT: I feel Mahatma Gandhi’s non-violence was for the intelligent, educated British. It was not for those who don’t understand this language. Those circumstances don’t exist today.

Sure they don’t.  Not since your guys went on a rampage around Mumbai beating up people who hadn’t considered it a priority picking up the local language. These good for nothing journos don’t understand that.

SD: Today is non-violence day. What is your message?

 RT: I feel Mahatma Gandhi’s non-violence was for the intelligent, educated British. It was not for those who don’t understand this language. Those circumstances don’t exist today.

Thanks Raj for pointing it out that the people in this country and stupid and uneducated. But then again, if they were not so, where would that put you? Damn man, you are smart.

SD: But you have not answered the question on violence. Whether you endorse it…

 RT: I am not Mahatma Gandhi. And secondly, I speak to people in the language they understand. First I have a dialogue, if that is not understood I speak in another language. There is no remedy for this.

Er small suggestion - Ever considered conducting Marathi night classes for the common man?

SD: Taking the democracy argument further, in a country like India, who decides which person has the right to be in whichever part of the country?

 RT: India is like Europe. This means there is one currency and numerous languages and cultures. And this is a ‘Europe’ made up of various cultures.

Oh Thank You! I always wanted to be called European. But why restrict yourself to Europe alone, why not the whole world? Oh shucks, the world does not have the same currency. So I guess that’s all that binds a country together, the currency. Now here’s a smart guy. I suppose the next thing he’ll propose is having multiple state-level currencies, individual monarchs and the only time the word India is mentioned is when there’s a cricket match. How wonderful! – Hey wait a minute – didn’t we have that about a hundred years back? (with the Lagaan Cricket match) Yeaah! Raj has it figured out. Let’s invite the Brits to re-rule us, that way we’ll all be happy. Brilliant gem of a fellow I must say.

SD: What I am saying is, suppose someone who lives here and is contributing to Maharashtra, Mumbai, but doesn’t know Marathi, is that person’s contribution any less?

 RT: It is not about contribution. They should learn Marathi.

SD: Isn’t that some kind of jabardasti?

RT: They don’t understand any other language but jabardasti. My plea to teach Marathi in schools was not heard either. If this is your attitude, we will do jabardasti.

Raj is absolutely right. This is not about contribution, who cares about contribution anyway? What were people like Edison and Einstein thinking anyway, they should’ve joined the nearest grammar school instead of inventing stupid things like the light bulb and the theory of relativity?

SD: Why do you think the Maharashtrian manoos lacks the killer instinct that we see in other states?

RT: Those who govern us have become mentally corrupt. Ultimately they are the ones who influence masses. Through the elections in Gujarat, each time two Gujaratis came face to face here, they said “Om Namah Namah”. They meant Om Narendra Modi Namah.    

Oh God, I love this guy. He cracks jokes as well. Now let’s see – can I think of a Marathi expression that will mean “Om Raj Thackeray namah”? Raj- Help me out please, I am still learning the language.

SD: The impression is that you are one of the biggest landlords in India?

 RT: I’ll be happy if I am.

SD: So it’s not true? Are you one of the biggest in Maharashtra?

RT: Go, count my property and tell me if I am. You are talking about Kohinoor. It’s not with me. It’s with the IL&FS. The headlines look great: Raj buys Kohinoor for Rs 421 crore. Where did I get Rs 421 crore?
SD: Tell us…

RT: IL&FS was our third partner. We were one-third partners each. You know when the politicians speak, people think otherwise. I was sitting in this hall outside. Since childhood, we have been playing and going around Shivaji Park. Shiv Sena Bhavan was here. I have a construction business.

Common Shobha, leave the poor guy alone. Go chase Hiranandani or DLF. Raj is only a one third partner, he just had 140 crores. That’s peanuts, don’t you have better work than chase poor builder turned politicians?

SD: Do you justify Hitler’s tactics?

RT: Yes, I do. If you don’t understand my point of view, I’ll have to do this. For me, Maharashtra’s pride is most important. Maharashtra is for Marathi manoos. Will you say England belongs to other nationals because they are there in large numbers?

SD: How do you relax?

RT: Reading. I read biographies. Hitler, Indira Gandhi.
SD: Hitler as a hero?

RT: You know I think Gandhiji was the greatest leader in India in the last century. Similarly, Hitler’s commitment to the German nation-building is historical. No one will support his genocide of Jews.
SD: Your strategy — Maharashtra for Maharashtrians… how is it so different from Hitler’s? Who is an outsider?

RT: Those who don’t accept the official language here are outsiders. Marathi is local. Those who have come from outside but have accepted this state as theirs are locals. I have several Gujarati friends who have lived here for generations. They speak in Marathi.

Any the one’s who don’t speak Marathi? Let us put them in trucks, pile them up in Ghettos, strip them naked and gas their women, Children and aged. Oh and when no one’s looking let’s burn their dead as well. Hitler had it easy, he had just 6 million Jews to kill.

 Just one thing- How will the Gandhi part of my brain react to the Hitler part of my brain? Not sure. How do you do it Raj, how do you make Gandhi and Hitler co-exist in your mind? And if you somehow manage to make them co-exist, I hope Gandhi can teach a thing or two to Hitler.

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Is Laloo smarter than a fifth grader?

Do we deserve the leaders we have? I think yes. 

We fret and fume about how corrupt our leaders are and at the same time get charmed by their antics, call them on game shows and ask them to give speeches in premier management institutes.

Yes, Lalu Prasad Yadav is the person I am talking of.

Lalu has been charged with multiple corruption cases, the most famous being the “Fodder scam”. In the Fodder Scam, the funds meant for cattle fodder were diverted from the animal husbandry department to Lalu’s personal coffers. The explanation that was given for the disappearing  funds was that the chicken were eating more fodder than usual. And just how much more did the birds eat? Eah wing flapping creature was eating about INR 5000 worth of fodder a day. That’s more than what an American eats in a day (ok maybe not). From 1997 to 2001, he has been in jail five times.  The case and many more like these are still pending in court.

Watching Lalu Prasad Yadav on Shah Rukh Khan’s rip off of “Are You smarter than a fifth grader” and going on to win INR 1 crore on the show, I looked at disbelief as the audience go wild, obviously amused and excited to see the guy show his antics. His answers drew numerous claps from the audience. Shah Rukh even went on to say there should be a “Lalu Encyclopedia”.

Lalu has been invited to speak of his revolutionary engineering of the financial turnaround of the Indian Railways at the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad. While the turnaround of the Indian Railways is admirable, truth of the matter is that at the heart of it, Lalu is a corrupt politician whose rule of Bihar has turned the state into a living hell. According to a study by Transparency International, Bihar has been rated as the most corrupt state in India. Corruption is a way of life in Bihar. The list of corrupt politicians would include Lalu himself, RJD MPs Mohd. Shahbuddin and Pappu Yadav, Jai Prakash Narayan Yadav, union minister of state for water resources and Lalu’s MP brother-in-law Sadhu Yadav amongst others. Between them they have siphoned off thousands of crores of rupees. The crime condition in the state is beyond all control.

Extolling such a person by laughing at his jokes is nothing but a mockery of the entire democratic process.

In the US, Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska has been grilled by the FBI and the IRS for a bribery case and has been has been indicted for making false statements about receiving gifts, primarily from prominent businessmen. 

In India, irrespective of the cases against him, irrespective of the fact that he has been to jail on corruption charges on many an occasion, we invite him to game shows and IIMs. And India cheers on. What a shame.

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Mayawati - Rampant misuse of the Social Justice Cause

Mayawati has been no stranger to the person following the course of Indian politics over the last decade or so. To the uninitiated, Mayawati is the current Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh and the leader of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). The BSP was established in 1984 by Kanshi Ram and Mayawati was then his protegee.

The core motto of the BSP is supposedly uplifting the backward classes in India. The BSP hit a home run with the “dalits” (backward community / downtrodden), who for centuries had been a victim of the ancient caste system in India. Mayawati, who was named as Kanshi Ram’s successor in 2001, has since then blatantly misused this social justice cause for her own benefit. 

In 2002-2003 she was charged with corruption in the “Taj Heritage Corridor Scam”. The Taj Heritage Corridor had nothing to do with preserving the heritage of the Taj Mahal. Though the reasons cited were to maintain the greens on the banks of the “Yamuna” river, which flows by right next to Taj Mahal, the project was a guise to commercialize the area surrounding the monument.  There were even plans for creation of an amusement park. Since then, the Rs 175 crores (around $42 mil) allotted to the project by the government has vanished mysteriously. The CVC (Central Vigilance Committee) in August 2005 submitted a report to the Supreme Court informing them there was enough evidence to prosecute Mayawati in this case. Surprisingly the CBI and the Attorney General have been of the opinion that the case against Mayawati should be closed. Since then, Mayawati has gone ahead to become the Chief Minister of UP (in 2007) and the taxpayer’s money is still missing.

As the CM of Uttar Pradesh, Mayawati’s conduct has again been questionable. Her property expansion in Lucknow has gone virtually unnoticed except certain vigilant NGOs who have been filing cases to prevent her from acquiring land using her blatant display of political muscle. Mayawati has a Type-VI bungalow in her name in Lucknow’s Mall Avenue. She was out to allegedly grab four bungalows in the neighborhood to expand her existing 33,000 square feet ex-chief minister’s bungalow into 250,000 sq feet of a virtually private estate. In late 2007, four bungalows surrounding her house were demolished citing security reasons. From the year 2004 to 2007, her disclosed assets have grown around 400% from Rs 11 crores ($2.75 mil) to Rs 52 crores ($13 mil). I am scared to even imagine what her undisclosed assets would be.

In India, corruption by politicians is not something new to us and in a sad sorry way we have grown used to it. The saddest part of the story is however that all this wealth has been accumulated using “social justice” as the cause. Mayawati has always made promises to the dalit community that the reason her party exists is to ensure the backward community does not get discriminated against and receive benefits so they can join mainstream India as equals.

As of now, there is nothing done by her to prove that this is not yet another gimmick to win votes. No improvement of living conditions has been brought to the Dalits in UP. While the Dalits continues to be ignored, Mayawati went ahead with a Rs 300 crore ($75mil) project to develop a park in the name of the dalit activist of the yesteryears Dr. B. R. Ambedkar.

All in the name of Social Justice

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India needs a leader like Barack Obama

The US Presidential elections have been in the news lately. Democratic frontrunner Barack Obama has been applauded for bringing to the United States revolutionary ideas and ethical practices that the USreally needed. Though his political career has been short (he was elected to the state of Illinois as a senator in 2004) the work he has done throughout his life has been worth mentioning. He has been an advocate of Civil rights ever since he graduated from Harvard Law in 1991 and started practicing as a civil rights lawyer. Fighting all odds, his belief in the ability to unite people around a politics or purpose and a politics that intends to solve challenges of American people has been appreciated all around the world. His campaign for the last one year has drawn tremendous response as people throughout the US have come together to donate towards his campaign. Most of the donations to his campaign fund have come directly from the common American.

Throughout his career, first as a lawyer and then as a US Senator, Obama has been an advocate in various issues related to Civil Rights, Disabilities, the Economy, Education, Environment, Ethics, Religious Faith, Families & Communities , Foreign Policy, Healthcare, Social Security, Homeland Security, Rural development, The Iraq issue, Urban development, Women and even issues related to technology and innovation.

Viewing a candidate such as Obama, one very distinctly gets the impression of a strong intelligent person who wishes to use his intelligence to overcome the challenges that America and the Americans face and not use his intelligence for political gain. Even though I’m sure he has a whole team of people helping him build his image and brand, he comes across as a person who actually thinks about the problems and tries to solve them. I couldn’t help but think how desperately India needs a leader like Obama.

Going back a few days to my post on why are Indians obsessed with Sonia, there was a comment from a visitor that pedigree is important in selection of a leader. Looking at Obama, I couldn’t agree more. If I look at any of our leaders, I couldn’t find a single one. Sure we have elitists like Dr. Manmohan Singh, P. Chidambaram and A.B Vajpayee; then we have the current yuppie crowd Rahul Gandhi, J. Sindhia and Sachin Pilot as well as the rustic sharp brains like Laloo Prasad Yadav and Mayawati. And of course we have Sonia Gandhi, the lady often compared to Durga. But none of them even comes close to the pedigree, experience, achievements that Obama possesses.

So do we need a leader like Obama? I was not sure until I read his speech titled “A More Perfect Union” that I realized how much we did. The speech is more than 5000 words and can be found here.

I have listed down some Excerpts from the speech and their analogy / significance to India:

“I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together - unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction - towards a better future for our children and our grandchildren”

I wonder if any of our leaders will give an explanation as to why they chose to run for the Prime Minister’s position. If you’re thinking why that’s important, I’ll tell you why. Declaration of intent is important because it tells us where the candidate is coming from. Even if they have a detailed manifesto, most of our national parties will not declare intent because it helps them ally with any other party in a coalition if it suits them. The few leaders who declare their intent, do it for specific communities (like Mayawati) or for invoking specific religious sentiments (like the Sangh Parivar) or for invoking regional sentiments (like Raj Thackeray). The last decent intent I saw was in Rajiv Gandhi, even if his was a simple “garibi hatao” statement. Why I love Obama’s intent is that he wants America to move in the same direction of a better future. How many of our leaders think of a better future for Indians is debatable.

“As such, Reverend Wright’s comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems - two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.”

How many of our leaders talk about issues that affect everyone and what they will do to fight the challenges. Obama talks about the economy and healthcare issues and emphasizes that the problems that America faces are not race related. In India, our leaders would rant about race, ethnicity and religious issues and at times even invent them for political gain. Our national problems are many, we have low literacy rates, a huge dependency on the service sector and the American economy, an almost non-existent manufacturing industry, rising food prices, rising cost of other commodities, rising fuel prices. None of our leaders will show concrete intention to solve these problems. We will have people like Raj Thackeray who will say we should protect Marathi women from North Indian abusers. We won’t have people (other than die hard feminists like Renuka Choudhary) who will work towards empowering Indian women.

Obama’s explanation of his opinion on Reverend Wright’s statements also depicts a certain rare quality that our leaders don’t possess. When faced with a tricky situation, they choose to ignore or stonewall (like the current government’s lack of interest in getting foreign bank account details and the subsequent media criticism). Obama on the other hand took it heads on, gave an explanation and treated the citizens of the country as adults. Our leaders will either patronize us or ignore our opinions and in no circumstances will give us an explanation for their actions or beliefs.

“Legalized discrimination - where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments - meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today’s urban and rural communities.”

This is extremely relevant to the Indian scenario in lieu of the current “reservation issue”. While people from the backward classes (for lack of a better word) have not been discriminated against on the basis of skin color, due to the prevailing caste
system in this country they have not been given the same opportunities as people from the “Upper castes” have been. In India, this discrimination though not legalized by the judiciary, has been legalized by society as a whole and it is the reason why so many people from the backward classes are backward. How our politicians attempt to solve this problem is another matter altogether.

“But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn’t make it - those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations - those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways”

Caste has become a major driving force in Indian society. These feelings of casteism are not only prevalent in the political circles, but also within the common junta. Go to small villages and you’ll see people still discriminating against the backward classes. Go to the cities, a backward class person will continue to demand reservation irrespective of his prosperity. In a swift decision the government decides to make reservation based on caste mandatory. Fact of the matter is that in India, the caste debate is here to stay and will not go away easily.

“A similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don’t feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience - as far as they’re concerned, no one’s handed them anything, they’ve built it from scratch. They’ve worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they’re told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.”

This is very true if you consider the way a “non-backward” class person feels in India. These people are also referred to as the “General Category”. Most of these people have been deemed a privileged having receive better education and opportunities. However, they’ve had to struggle hard for it often foregoing short term benefits to work towards a better future. When suddenly they are labeled as “privileged”, they get a feeling of resentment that builds up over time. When they are told that the under-privileged have been discriminated against, they cannot come to terms with it, because they haven’t done any of the discriminations themselves. I must say, this was probably the best move that Obama could make by bringing out these feelings of resentment and trying positively to address them. Most other politicians would be sure to let the skeletons rot in the closet. In India, we see politicians right from Mayawati to Rahul Gandhi to Dr. Manmohan Singh talk about the rights of the backward classes. No one has ever made any attempt to talk to the “general category”. Politics in India has never sought to bring people together. Because if people unite, then the issue gets solved and then where’s the vote bank going to go?

“For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle - as we did in the OJ trial - or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news”

We too can make a choice. We can accept the politics that the current breed of leaders glorify or we can vote to power a leader who brings together people and ideas and works towards the betterment of India. If we do not have such a person currently, we can raise our voice to demand such a person. Over a period of time, I think we can get such a leader as Barack Obama in India.

My name is not relevant and I am the Angry Indian

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Why do we obsess about Sonia Gandhi?

It is catastrophic disaster to hand over the reigns of this country to someone who has no Governance skills or Experience. Which is why Sonia Gandhi should not be voted to power. It has nothing to do with her being White or Italian.

Noone has any business hurling personal insults at her or hating her.

My name is not relevant and I am the Angry Indian

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Barack Obama’s speech: A More perfect Union

I watched this over and over again and realized how much we need a leader like Obama in India.
Without much ado, I’m posting the video here. The text is a bit long, but trust me, worth reading, can be found here.

My name is not relevant and I am the Angry Indian

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