Skip to main content

Why I stopped writing politics

Image from Wikipedia


When you are confronted with a situation that is irredeemably hopeless, what do you do? I would choose to avoid it and walk on. In the less sophisticated parlance of the village that I have chosen to live in now, if you step on shit you will stink.

Three months before Mr Narendra Modi became the Prime Minister of India, I made a prediction in my blog: “Modi will engender a civil war in the country if he becomes its Prime Minister, my instincts predict.” Within months of his becoming PM, many Christian places of worship were attacked in Delhi and peripheral regions. Eventually Muslims and Hindu Dalits became the targets of hydra-headed attacks. People were killed in the name of cows and other totems.  Women were assaulted, raped and killed. The tragedy goes on.

Most of the promises made in Modi’s election manifesto have remained unfulfilled though the country is marching towards the next general elections. Development, job creation, corruption-free governance and bringing down prices were what Indians voted for. What they got is more corruption, more poverty, more unemployment, more taxes, rocketing prices and, worst of all, mounting mutual hatred bred by false propaganda and brazen chicanery.

The country has been brought down to the worst of imaginable situations. It will be a Herculean task for any leader now to bring basic sanity back to the nation. Unfortunately, there is no sign of any such leader. Tragically, Modi will come to power again in 2019, my instincts tell me. Murphy’s Law will continue to work out and wreak its vengeance on the nation.

Hope was the last item in Pandora’s Box. All the evils and miseries of the world flew out of that box, according to Greek mythology. I don’t know if hope was the last misery or the last redemptive power. I would like to hope anyway, hope for a better India.  India cannot become worse any further now.

A cry in the mountains is known to have started off an avalanche.

Comments

  1. A bleak future awaits indeed....The self destructive mechanism seems to have been put on by us.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Indeed by us. We are the real power in democracy. But 'we' have been brainwashed by propaganda and chicanery.

      Delete
  2. Sir, when the countrymen are happy being fooled, why should the 'leader' hesitate to fool them ? The trouble with the masses or the voters themselves. We are destined to get the leader we deserve. To end all this nonsense visible throughout the nation, first of all the countrymen have to open their eyes and see the true character of their highly revered 'leader'.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This is exactly what I tell my students too. We the people are responsible for the leaders we elect. BJP has successfully manipulated religious sentiments to fool people.

      Delete
  3. you seem to be biased against the BJP. CPI-M is way more violent than any other party. Congress is the most corrupt party ever. They won't think twice before supporting terrorists even. Lets be honest. BJP stopped religious conversions & that is why minorities are going mad. Has your freedom been curtailed post BJP coming to power?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Your comment is a symptom of one of the worst tragedies that befell the nation after Modi came to power. Everything is seen through the filters of religion. I don't care for religion. I'm not a believer as you would have understood if you had read at least a few of my posts. I'm questioning a lot of other things apart from communalisation of the nation (which is more terrible than the others). I'm questioning the utter lack of delivery of promises. Where is the development, where the Swachh Bharat, black money back in our accounts, employment, and a whole lot of other things? When such unpleasant questions are raised you harp on the same string of religion which your leader is doing from all possible platforms and thus hoodwinking the nation by playing on inane religious sentiments. I am unable to understand why Indians are so foolish as to be swayed by hollow rhetoric even if they are based on religion.

      Delete
    2. It truly is a situation where a thinking person no longer wants to talk/write about the atrocities that are being normalised in this country.

      Delete
    3. You have put it in the most dignified language possible, Kalpanaa.

      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...

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. ...

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...

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...

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...