Skip to main content

Room for Hope


The Times of India reports today (13 Jan) that Mr Amit Shah is going to issue a show cause notice to Sakshi Maharaj for continuing to make noises that are inconvenient for the BJP though they are in tune with the theme of the party’s hidden agenda.  People like Sakshi Maharaj and Sadhvi Jyoti are the religious faces of the party, while Mr Modi and Mr Shah are the political faces.  For the former certain medieval beliefs and practices are the truths, while for the latter those beliefs and practices are mere ploys for attaining and retaining political power.  It is possible that those beliefs and practices have some value for Mr Modi and Mr Shah too since they seem to be harbouring a hidden agenda: creating a Hindu Rashtra in India.  But transforming a nation from one constitutional system to another is not very easy, they know.  Bringing about the transformation by force will engender violence and bloodshed.  Neither Mr Modi nor Mr Shah want a civil war in the country.  That is one reason for hope.

But I see a little more room for hope.  If Mr Shah and his party are really going to focus on the development theme and sideline the religious theme, it will affect the thinking of the public in a significant manner.  The public are gullible and credulous.  They will actually begin to think that the religious themes are being buried and they will actually begin to focus on development and related tasks.  It will be a significant change of mindset.  It can be good enough for redeeming the country from regressing into the kind of medievalism that guides the thoughts and actions of the Maharaj and the Sadhvi and the like.

The harsh reality may be that the opulent corporate sector that has hijacked the present union government for their own benefits is demanding a short leash on the tongues of the medievalist elements in the Parliament.  Today’s capitalism is quite different from its aristocratic counterpart of the medieval period.  And the capitalists who uphold the vibrancy in Mr Modi’s very own Gujarat and hope to spread that vibrancy to other states whose resources are waiting for the pulsating touches of neoliberal economics don’t want to miss their opportunities.

Neoliberal capitalism is preferable to obscurantist medievalism. 



PS. I had vowed a few years ago to write in as simple a style as possible so that my writing is accessible to the very ordinary reader.  I’m afraid I have to renege on that vow as my writing is attracting certain elements that I would prefer to keep at a distance. 

Comments

  1. We let fanatics rule this country. Can't understand why all youngsters are crazy about them?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. A simple answer: People love heroes . There were no heroes in Indian politics after Ms Gandhi until Mr Modi came along.

      Delete
  2. Sakshi Maharaj and his rants! Pathetic!...but I'm an optimist and still hoping against hopes...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Maharaj and quite a few others in the current Parliament are a disgrace to the nation. But isn't it the nation that elected them?

      Delete
  3. Sakshi Maharaja must be taken with a pinch of salt and a lot of humour. Still, the state of the nation is worrying particularly the emphasis on religion.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. If everybody cultivates a healthy sense of humour, there would be no religious terrorism :)

      Delete
  4. I worry about the fate of country if population starts growing like this. I guess govt should rather say- Bachche do hi achche...

    www.hautekutir.com
    www.numerounity.com

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There's bound to be problems when people who by profession belong to the hermitage find their seats in the Parliament!

      Delete
  5. The article you have shared here very awesome. I really like and appreciated your work. I read deeply your article, the points you have mentioned in this article are useful
    Signature:
    i like play happy wheels demo online and play happy wheels games full and zombie tsunami game , retrica camera , retrica , happy wheels , agario

    ReplyDelete
  6. Posts that I really enjoy. I like taking pictures in his spare time and make your photos become more diverse and colorful. If you want, you can visit my website
    strike force heroes 2, strike force heroes 2, strike force heroes 2, strike force heroes 2, strike force heroes 2, strike force heroes 2, strike force heroes 2,strike force heroes 2, strike force heroes 2, strike force heroes 2

    ReplyDelete
  7. Just remember your stab at this business, should you decide to end it, is not a failure but a training ground. You will take with you what has worked and learned from what has not in order to make the next business idea a success!
    baixar whatsapp, baixar whatsapp gratis, whatsapp baixar.

    ReplyDelete
  8. You need to have time to take care of the active. It in fact was a amusement account it. Look advanced to far added agreeable from you.
    , banana kong , banana kong , dr driving , dr driving , subway surf download , download subway surf

    ReplyDelete
  9. Very interesting blog. Alot of blogs I see these days don't really provide anything that I'm interested in, but I'm most definately interested in this one. Just thought that I would post and let you know.
    wings.io , wingsio , wings io , wingsio game , play wingsio

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Florentino’s Many Loves

Florentino Ariza has had 622 serious relationships (combo pack with sex) apart from numerous fleeting liaisons before he is able to embrace the only woman whom he loved with all his heart and soul. And that embrace happens “after a long and troubled love affair” that lasted 51 years, 9 months, and 4 days. Florentino is in his late 70s when he is able to behold, and hold as well, the very body of his beloved Fermina, who is just a few years younger than him. She now stands before him with her wrinkled shoulders, sagged breasts, and flabby skin that is as pale and cold as a frog’s. It is the culmination of a long, very long, wait as far as Florentino is concerned, the end of his passionate quest for his holy grail. “I’ve remained a virgin for you,” he says. All those 622 and more women whose details filled the 25 diaries that he kept writing with meticulous devotion have now vanished into thin air. They mean nothing now that he has reached where he longed to reach all his life. The

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl

Unromantic Men

Romance is a tenderness of the heart. That is disappearing even from the movies. Tenderness of heart is not a virtue anymore; it is a weakness. Who is an ideal man in today’s world? Shakespeare’s Romeo and Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s Devdas would be considered as fools in today’s world in which the wealthiest individuals appear on elite lists, ‘strong’ leaders are hailed as nationalist heroes, and success is equated with anything other than traditional virtues. The protagonist of Colleen McCullough’s 1977 novel, The Thorn Birds [which sold more than 33 million copies], is torn between his idealism and his natural weaknesses as a human being. Ralph de Bricassart is a young Catholic priest who is sent on a kind of punishment-appointment to a remote rural area of Australia where the Cleary family arrives from New Zealand in 1921 to take care of the enormous estate of Mary Carson who is Paddy Cleary’s own sister. Meggy Cleary is the only daughter of Paddy and Fiona who have eight so

Octlantis

I was reading an essay on octopuses when friend John walked in. When he is bored of his usual activities – babysitting and gardening – he would come over. Politics was the favourite concern of our conversations. We discussed politics so earnestly that any observer might think that we were running the world through the politicians quite like the gods running it through their devotees. “Octopuses are quite queer creatures,” I said. The essay I was reading had got all my attention. Moreover, I was getting bored of politics which is irredeemable anyway. “They have too many brains and a lot of hearts.” “That’s queer indeed,” John agreed. “Each arm has a mind of its own. Two-thirds of an octopus’s neurons are found in their arms. The arms can taste, touch, feel and act on their own without any input from the brain.” “They are quite like our politicians,” John observed. Everything is linked to politics in John’s mind. I was impressed with his analogy, however. “Perhaps, you’re r

Yesterday

With students of Carmel Margaret, are you grieving / Over Goldengrove unleaving…? It was one of my first days in the eleventh class of Carmel Public School in Kerala, the last school of my teaching career. One girl, whose name was not Margaret, was in the class looking extremely melancholy. I had noticed her for a few days. I didn’t know how to put the matter over to her. I had already told the students that a smiling face was a rule in the English class. Since Margaret didn’t comply, I chose to drag Hopkins in. I replaced the name of Margaret with the girl’s actual name, however, when I quoted the lines. Margaret is a little girl in the Hopkins poem. Looking at autumn’s falling leaves, Margaret is saddened by the fact of life’s inevitable degeneration. The leaves have to turn yellow and eventually fall. And decay. The poet tells her that she has no choice but accept certain inevitabilities of life. Sorrow is our legacy, Margaret , I said to Margaret’s alter ego in my class. Let