Skip to main content

Obama’s Parting Shot

The ad: see the watermark

 In its advertisement - DAVP22201/13/0048/1415, which was published on 26 January - the government quotes the preamble of India's Constitution as "We the people of India, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a SOVEREIGN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC...." as opposed to the genuine version that states: “WE, THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a SOVEREIGN SOCIALIST SECULAR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC and to secure to all its citizens..."

Mr Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister, is averse to both socialism and secularism.  He is adept at making use of surreptitious practices to achieve his objectives.  The way he tried to foist a lot of ordinances on the country, in spite of his party enjoying the majority in the Lok Sabha, was snubbed by the President himself.  There are many activities going on behind invisible curtains, activities that may remind one of Hitler and his propagandists, activities that will disrupt the country’s religious texture.

The parting shot delivered by the American President in his “Town Hall” speech is of greater relevance than most Indians may imagine.  He underscored the importance of secularism and the need to sustain the religious diversity in India.

Just as the Indian Prime Minister chose to keep mum on many issues related to attacks on minority communities, he will in all probability ignore our demand for explanation on the disappearance of Socialism and Secularism from the Preamble of the Constitution.

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

Hitler’s propaganda chief, Joseph Goebbels, said that.  Mr Modi and his supporters have already started practising it.  The outcome may not be what India as a country voted for a few months back.



Labels

Labels:

Comments

  1. EduPubJanuary 28, 2015 at 9:57 AM

    Very nice view expressed by author.

    ReplyDelete
  2. EJJanuary 28, 2015 at 10:26 AM

    Most people will love to act like ostriches until it is their heads that are in trouble...Everyone is happy as long there is "development" here...Nobody wants to think of long-term.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJanuary 28, 2015 at 11:59 AM

      I wonder what happened to all those "intellectuals" and "jholawallahs" of yesterday. Have all of them been bought off by the BJP?

      Delete
    2. Online JournalistJanuary 28, 2015 at 6:42 PM

      I appreciate the author for his wonderful article and the above commenter.

      Delete
    3. Tomichan MatheikalJanuary 28, 2015 at 7:34 PM

      Thanks, Maliyekal, for your appreciation. This struggle is becoming tough.

      Delete
  3. UnknownJanuary 28, 2015 at 12:01 PM

    People don't want to see this. They want to remain hopeful of the idea of "development".
    The top rank talks about development, while the lower rank goes about preaching all kinds of nonsense like "Love jihaad", "Ghar Wapasai".
    And among all the other things, this was very sad.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJanuary 28, 2015 at 7:36 PM

      The top rank and the bottom rank work together though they may not know each other and each other's objectives. The top rank want political power and the bottom rank thinks they are going to benefit in the process. Hooligans among the bottom rank are being made use of.

      Delete
  4. HaddockJanuary 29, 2015 at 1:38 PM

    That slight "rap" on the back of the head before stepping on the plane really jolted some big wigs.
    In Bombaiya language its known as "tapli marke gaya aur patta hi nahi chala"

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJanuary 29, 2015 at 6:48 PM

      We deserved that slap, in fact. We asked for it. We want help from all countries, our PM has visited many countries and got business deals, but we are not willing to accommodate certain people in the country! That's worse than hypocrisy.

      Delete
  5. UnknownJune 9, 2017 at 8:17 AM

    phim sex icid complex
    icid lừa đảo
    lauxanh.us
    icid complex bán dâm
    icid bán dâm
    website độc hại
    spam google
    website rác
    icid complex
    icid complex
    icid complex
    icid complex

    icid complex
    icid complex
    icid complex
    icid complex

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...
16 comments
Read more

Liberated

Fiction - parable Vijay was familiar enough with soil and the stones it turns up to realise that he had struck something rare.   It was a tiny stone, a pitch black speck not larger than the tip of his little finger. It turned up from the intestine of the earth while Vijay was digging a pit for the biogas plant. Anand, the scientist from the village, got the stone analysed in his lab and assured, “It is a rare object.   A compound of carbonic acid and magnesium.” Anand and his fellow scientists believed that it must be a fragment of a meteoroid that hit the earth millions of years ago.   “Very rare indeed,” concluded the scientist. Now, it’s plain commonsense that something that’s very rare indeed must be very valuable too. All the more so if it came from the heavens. So Vijay got the village goldsmith to set it on a gold ring.   Vijay wore the ring proudly on his ring finger. Nobody, in the village, however bothered to pay any homage to Vijay’s...
47 comments
Read more

Bharata: The Ascetic King

Bharata is disillusioned yet again. His brother, Rama the ideal man, Maryada Purushottam , is making yet another grotesque demand. Sita Devi has to prove her purity now, years after the Agni Pariksha she arranged for herself long ago in Lanka itself. Now, when she has been living for years far away from Rama with her two sons Luva and Kusha in the paternal care of no less a saint than Valmiki himself! What has happened to Rama? Bharata sits on the bank of the Sarayu with tears welling up in his eyes. Give me an answer, Sarayu, he said. Sarayu accepted Bharata’s tears too. She was used to absorbing tears. How many times has Rama come and sat upon this very same bank and wept too? Life is sorrow, Sarayu muttered to Bharata. Even if you are royal descendants of divinity itself. Rama had brought the children Luva and Kusha to Ayodhya on the day of the Ashvamedha Yagna which he was conducting in order to reaffirm his sovereignty and legitimacy over his kingdom. He didn’t know they w...
30 comments
Read more

Chitrakoot: Antithesis of Ayodhya

Illustration by MS Copilot Designer Chitrakoot is all that Ayodhya is not. It is the land of serenity and spiritual bliss. Here there is no hankering after luxury and worldly delights. Memory and desire don’t intertwine here producing sorrow after sorrow. Situated in a dense forest, Chitrakoot is an abode of simplicity and austerity. Ayodhya’s composite hungers have no place here. Let Ayodhya keep its opulence and splendour, its ambitions and dreams. And its sorrows as well. Chitrakoot is a place for saints like Atri and Anasuya. Atri is one of the Saptarishis and a Manasputra of Brahma. Brahma created the Saptarishis through his mind to help maintain cosmic order and spread wisdom. Anasuya is his wife, one of the most chaste and virtuous women in Hindu mythology. Her virtues were so powerful that she could transmute the great Trimurti of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva into infants when they came to test her chastity. Chitrakoot is the place where asceticism towers above even divinit...
22 comments
Read more

Why do good to others?

Courtesy: polyp.org.uk “Most people would rather die than think and most people do,” said Bertrand Russell in his characteristic witty way.   Professor of Philosophy and author of many books, A C Grayling, is of the opinion that religion has continued to survive even in today’s scientific world because people don’t want to think.   They would rather accept readymade answers given by religion.   God is the ultimate readymade answer for a whole lot of problems.   And a very easy answer too. If we really think and evolve our own moral systems instead of borrowing them from religion, we will be far better human beings, says Grayling in his latest book, The God Argument.   If we think sensibly (common sense would do if we cared to use that faculty), we will realise that we all have a duty to contribute to the welfare of the entire human species.   The simple logic is that when the species is “flourishing” (Grayling’s word) we too flourish.   ...
33 comments
Read more