Skip to main content

Shashi Tharoor and Crime in India

I don’t know if Shashi Tharoor abetted Sunanda Pushkar’s suicide. I don’t know whether it was suicide or natural death. I know one thing, however: India today is a country where anyone can become a criminal overnight and anyone can become a saint overnight depending on which political party you belong to or get support from.

We have a Prime Minister whose complicity in the 2002 Gujarat riots is not a secret at all. You can kill hundreds of people, drive out thousands from their homes and sow the seeds of communal hatred in the whole country and still be a hero in India. The most powerful person in the country after the PM, Amit Shah, was notorious as an encounter killer until he put on a saintly halo round his fat face after his best friend became the most powerful man in the country.

Yogi Adityanath just wrote off all the criminal cases against him when he became the Chief Minister of the most crime-ridden state in the country. 20,000 cases against politicians in Uttar Pradesh are wiped off history by the man who wears an ascetic’s robes which look more farcical on him than outrageous.

The ruling BJP has the highest number of lawmakers with cases of crimes against women. The party has supported crimes against minority communities and Dalits. All the promises made by that party about bringing clean governance were only “chunavi jumla” (electoral gimmick) as Ram Jethmalani said last year.

Everything – well, almost – is a gimmick in the country today. The reality is a bizarre monster hiding behind charming masks designed by the world’s best costume designers. According to latest reports, BJP has spent ₹4300 crore on publicity alone after Modi became the Prime Minister. Publicity. Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth, as Goebbels the Guru of RSS said and our Prime Minister exhorted as in the video below.


It’s a hilariously tragic state of affairs in the country. Fair is foul and foul is fair, Shakespeare would say. Hard luck, Shashi!

Comments

  1. http://joshidaniel.com/May 14, 2018 at 10:20 PM

    Tharoor's 'Why I Am a Hindu' book might have irritated the medieval guys. But again I don't know if anyone from their side knows to read.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMay 14, 2018 at 10:23 PM

      I've just started reading that book and found it mesmerising. But it cannot be just the book; it must have something to do with some of his recent remarks about the party as well as the approaching elections.

      Delete
  2. pushpendra dwivediMay 15, 2018 at 6:23 PM

    ha ha ha best political funda

    ReplyDelete
  3. Pradeep NairMay 18, 2018 at 7:30 PM

    Very true. But actually, it's not just in the case of crime, but in many other senses as well.
    I find no political party better than the other. Every party has a few very good leaders; but most of them, especially at the local levels, leave a lot to be desired.
    Look at what is happening in Goa, Manipur, now in Karnataka.
    Every party, for once, is being disrobbed simultaneously.
    A very sad state of affairs. And, these are the people who take very important policy decisions that impact our lives and future.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMay 18, 2018 at 7:58 PM

      The real tragedy of a country is lack of a visionary leader. We suffer from that now. When I mentioned the blatant gimmicks employed by BJP in Karnataka, her instant response was, "We know BJP is a party of goons, so no surprise. But what about other parties?" True. What about other parties? Cry my beloved country.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ayodhya: Kingdom of Sorrows

T he Sarayu carried more tears than water. Ayodhya was a sad kingdom. Dasaratha was a good king. He upheld dharma – justice and morality – as best as he could. The citizens were apparently happy. Then, one day, it all changed. One person is enough to change the destiny of a whole kingdom. Who was that one person? Some say it was Kaikeyi, one of the three official wives of Dasaratha. Some others say it was Manthara, Kaikeyi’s chief maid. Manthara was a hunchback. She was the caretaker of Kaikeyi right from the latter’s childhood; foster mother, so to say, because Kaikeyi had no mother. The absence of maternal influence can distort a girl child’s personality. With a foster mother like Manthara, the distortion can be really bad. Manthara was cunning, selfish, and morally ambiguous. A severe physical deformity can make one worse than all that. Manthara was as devious and manipulative as a woman could be in a men’s world. Add to that all the jealousy and ambition that insecure peo...
35 comments
Read more

Abdullah’s Religion

O Abdulla Renowned Malayalam movie actor Mohanlal recently offered special prayers for Mammootty, another equally renowned actor of Kerala. The ritual was performed at Sabarimala temple, one of the supreme Hindu pilgrimage centres in Kerala. No one in Kerala found anything wrong in Mohanlal, a Hindu, praying for Mammootty, a Muslim, to a Hindu deity. Malayalis were concerned about Mammootty’s wellbeing and were relieved to know that the actor wasn’t suffering from anything as serious as it appeared. Except O Abdulla. Who is this Abdulla? I had never heard of him until he created an unsavoury controversy about a Hindu praying for a Muslim. This man’s Facebook profile describes him as: “Former Professor Islahiaya, Media Critic, Ex-Interpreter of Indian Ambassador, Founder Member MADHYAMAM.” He has 108K followers on FB. As I was reading Malayalam weekly this morning, I came to know that this Abdulla is a former member of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind Kerala , a fundamentalist organisation. ...
10 comments
Read more

Lucifer and some reflections

Let me start with a disclaimer: this is not a review of the Malayalam movie, Lucifer . These are some thoughts that came to my mind as I watched the movie today. However, just to give an idea about the movie: it’s a good entertainer with an engaging plot, Bollywood style settings, superman type violence in which the hero decimates the villains with pomp and show, and a spicy dance that is neatly tucked into the terribly orgasmic climax of the plot. The theme is highly relevant and that is what engaged me more. The role of certain mafia gangs in political governance is a theme that deserves to be examined in a good movie. In the movie, the mafia-politician nexus is busted and, like in our great myths, virtue triumphs over vice. Such a triumph is an artistic requirement. Real life, however, follows the principle of entropy: chaos flourishes with vengeance. Lucifer is the real winner in real life. The title of the movie as well as a final dialogue from the eponymous hero sugg...
4 comments
Read more

Empuraan and Ramayana

Maggie and I will be watching the Malayalam movie Empuraan tomorrow. The tickets are booked. The movie has created a lot of controversy in Kerala and the director has decided to impose no less than 17 censors on it himself. I want to watch it before the jingoistic scissors find its way to the movie. It is surprising that the people of Kerala took such exception to this movie when the same people had no problem with the utterly malicious and mendacious movie The Kerala Story (2023). [My post on that movie, which I didn’t watch, is here .] Empuraan is based partly on the Gujarat riots of 2002. The riots were real and the BJP’s role in it (Mr Modi’s, in fact) is well-known. So, Empuraan isn’t giving the audience any falsehood as The Kerala Story did. Moreover, The Kerala Story maligned the people of Kerala while Empuraan is about something that happened in the faraway Gujarat quite long ago. Why are the people of Kerala then upset with Empuraan ? Because it tells the truth, M...
13 comments
Read more

Empuraan – Review

Revenge is an ancient theme in human narratives. Give a moral rationale for the revenge and make the antagonist look monstrously evil, then you have the material for a good work of art. Add to that some spices from contemporary politics and the recipe is quite right for a hit movie. This is what you get in the Malayalam movie, Empuraan , which is running full houses now despite the trenchant opposition to it from the emergent Hindutva forces in the state. First of all, I fail to understand why so much brouhaha was hollered by the Hindutvans [let me coin that word for sheer convenience] who managed to get some 3 minutes censored from the 3-hour movie. The movie doesn’t make any explicit mention of any of the existing Hindutva political parties or other organisations. On the other hand, Allahu Akbar is shouted menacingly by Islamic terrorists, albeit towards the end. True, the movie begins with an implicit reference to what happened in Gujarat in 2002 after the Godhra train burnin...
8 comments
Read more