Frankly speaking

A few weeks back, Aligarh Muslim University decided to introduce 50% reservation for Muslims in all courses. This decision had to be okayed by the HRD Minister Arjun Singh. Being the secularist that he is, Arjun Singh promptly gave the proposal the thumbs up. In an interview on NDTV last week he said, in a bit of frank speaking,

"... I can't make decisions based on whether they are legal or illegal."

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A couple of days back on NDTV's big fight, the topic du jour was "Is secularism a political gimmick?", with the guests being Mani Shankar Aiyar ( Best Indian Ever), Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Seshadri Chari and Teesta Seetalvad. Mr.Secular Fundamentalist in a moment of lucidity claimed

"I am a better Indian than people of their ilk (Rudy, Chari etc) because I am Secular and they are not."

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Henceforth Arjun Singh is Mr.Metalegal and Mani Shankar Aiyar is Best Indian Ever.

Score one for Laloo a.k.a Paswan closer to irrelevance

Laloo Prasad, the Union Railiway Minister, pulled out all the stops and got the UPA Govt. to dissolve the Bihar Assembly. The offficial reason given for the decision is an urgent need to prevent horse trading by the NDA.

"Patil said Bihar Governor Buta Singh, in a report to the government, had said that unconstitutional and illegal steps were being taken by political parties to win over legislators".

NDTV is however reporting the UPA sources admit in private that Laloo had gotten some indication that the NDA was ready to stake claim to form the government with the help of the breakaway LJP MLAs and independents. On Sunday evening, after a ceremony to release a book about the achievements of the UPA government during its first year (I wonder if Goa, Jharkand, Shibu Soren, Laloo Prasad Yadav, Saptarishi were mentioned in the booklet), Laloo reportedly told Manmohan Singh it was now or never, and that if the answer was never, "complications" might arise in the government.

A bomb blast at two Delhi cinemas necessitated a late night cabinet meeting, but the issue of the Bihar Assembly dissolution was also discussed, according to NDTV. Soon the Govt. recommended that the Assembly be dissolved. The NDA (BJP and JD-U in particular) is going nuts at this decision and the usual threats of Bandh and going to courts have been made.

Now to the analysis: the biggest loser in all this has to be Ram Vilas Paswan and the LJP, closely followed by the NDA. The Congress will now have to go with the Laloo and the RJP to save its government. Laloo is promising to give it more seats during the elections and it remains to be seen. Ram Vilas Paswan is however caught between the devil and the deep sea. He cannot possibly go with the RJP having opposed him tooth and nail so far and having made it his election platform during the elections a few months back. But he cannot join the NDA for the assembly elections alone because the UPA will throw him out of the government. It is quite a big fall for him from a few months back, when he looked like a kingmaker, with a real possibility of controlling Bihar and also getting a plum ministry in the Union Govt. in return for keeping the NDA out of power in Bihar. There is a real possibility (small but significant) that he could lose his Cabinet position in the run up to the Bihar elections if he chooses the wrong side, and also end up not ruling Bihar as well.

Laloo cashed in on his 25 MPs in the Lok Sabha and made the spineless Congress accede to his demand of dissolving the Assembly. The RJP will in all likelihood head a coalition consisting of itself, the Congress and the Left parties, and maybe even the LJP.

This spells big trouble for the NDA though. The electoral arithmetic does not favor them and they might face a rout in the new round of elections. BJP has to be very worried. Nitish Kumar has resisted all efforts so far fromPaswan to leave the BJP. However this is the crunch time. An alliance with the LJP might get him the one seat he has coveted for long - the CM of Bihar.

They need a miracle to get out of this logjam. If they take this to the courts and the courts hear the case (highly unlikely in my opinion, what with the President having already acepted the Cabinet's decision to dissolve the assembly), they can take the moral high ground in this whole issue. It will be another event that follows in the pattern of Goa and Jharkhand, where the UPA Govt. has blundered and were admonished by the courts for their hasty and ill-conceived actions.

The NDA needs to start praying to RAM right now. Even he might not be able to get them out of this one. Laloo seems to have outwitted and outlasted them and it looks like Rabri will be back for a 2nd innings. The Bihar people get only a brief reprieve from Laloo. They might just be the biggest loser in all of this. However they have a chance to control their destiny through the ballot box. Will they be allowed to do so and, more importantly, will they vote for a change?.

Senior what?

The American magazine Newsweek caused a major uproar in many Islamic countries with a report about mishandling of the Quran (flushing a copy of Quan down the toilet) at Guantanamo Bay by American soldiers. After many people were killed in the riots and after their anonymous source backed away from claims previously made, Newsweek retracted the story. This is not enough says a senior militant. Yes, you read that right. Senior militant!. So there we have it, the official reaction from the militants. You know it wouldn't be so reliable if it were coming from just a middle-level militant or some "Junaid come lately" who had just been in the organisation for only a few months.

Was the British Empire good for India?

In the conservative magazine New Criterion, its managing editor Roger Kimball responds to a "third world feminist of colour with this justification of British colonisation of India. He says "I don't check messages to our letters address very often, which means that I may be missing some amusing (albeit inadvertently amusing) communications". In the event he checks the messages today, he will find this email from me.


Mr.Kimball,
This email is in reference to your post in
reference to the "fan mail" from the "third world feminist of colour". Reading your comments on India being the beneficiary of British colonialism and how the West brought "freedom, education, and language" to the savages, reminds me of the famous Disraeli reply to a politician who attacked him for being Jewish - " Yes, I am a Jew and when the ancestors of the right honourable gentleman were brutal savages in
an unknown island, mine were priests in the temple of Solomon." Yes, Indians were savages in the 18th and 19th century and when your ancestors were brutal savages in an unknown island, we were busy building great civilizations in Harappa and Mohenjadaro, fighring Alexander near the Indus, composing epic literary works in many languages. This is not to say these things somehow make India a superior country. But it is just to say Indians definitely were not savages at anytime during the last 2500 years.

Britain has produced some of the greatest scientists ever (clearly the greatest in Newton) and many of the greatest writers (after all it is your native language). But don't forget that the various parts that make up India have a great tradition of literature (including my own mother tongue, Tamil, stretching back to nearly 2000 years), architecture and ofcourse religion.

For a supposedly civilized country, the conduct of Britain in India (as in many of its colonies) is littered with brutality, inhumanity and plunder of resources. The great famine of Bengal and the genocide it brought upon Bengal is just one of the many examples of the inhuman nature of the British empire. Maybe you are using the Black Hole of Calcutta (that enduring myth) to justify your claim that the British civilized the Savages.

'If the British sinned, it was not because of their colonial rule, but because of the failure of nerve that led them to withdraw too precipitously from colonies that were ill-equipped to govern themselves--colonies in Africa, for example, and India itself. Had Britain had the courage to face down Gandhi and his rabble a few years longer, the tragedy that was the partititon of India might have been avoided." Well, how about this - if the British had never colonized India, they wouldn't have had to face down Gandhi.

"Never since the heroic days of Greece has the world had such a sweet, just, boyish master. It will be a black day for the human race when scientific blackguards, conspirators, churls, and fanatics manage to supplant him". That last bit you quote from Santayana sums up your attitude and it isn't a pretty picture. Your contrast of the good kind of colonialism that Britain practiced to the bad kind that Belgium practiced would be funny if it weren't so wrongheaded. You can keep believeing that Britain left India better than it found, but the fact of matter is that if India was better when the British left it than when they arrived, it was not because of the British, but inspite of them.

I am deeply disappointed with this screed you have written and it does nothing but show you in a poor light.


(I corrected some spelling and grammar mistakes from my email)