Skip to main content

Pimping a la Patel

 

Courtesy Nala Ponnappa

Praful Khoda Patel has made pimping an art. He knows how to sell India piece by piece to certain clients who have high connections. He sold Daman and Diu to CG Corp Global in 2018. Now he is selling Lakshadweep to other VIP clients. Thousands of indigenous people are displaced by him with impunity because he is acting on behalf of the central government which reportedly has “dreams for the people”.

This Patel is a phenomenon. His father, Khodabhai Ranchhodbhai Patel (a mouthful of a name) was an RSS leader whom Narendra Modi regarded as a guru. Our man became an MLA in Gujarat in 2007 and took over the entire charges of Amit Shah when the latter went to jail for arranging the encounter killing of Sohrabuddin Sheik. Now you can understand the ‘greatness’ of this phenomenal Patel. No ordinary man can take the place of Amit Shah under Narendra Modi.

The people of Gujarat failed to perceive that greatness, however, and Patel lost the 2012 election. But soon Modi became the PM and Patel was elevated to prominent places. Modi junked the convention of appointing IAS people as administrators of Union Territories and put Patel in Daman & Diu and soon extended his ominous power to Dadra & Nagar-Haveli.

Wherever he was, Patel was hated actively by ordinary people as well as his own party men. BJP leaders have complained against him time and again. As many as eight leaders have quit BJP in Lakshadweep now protesting against Patel’s reforms in the islands. Hundreds of simple fisherfolk in Daman now live in slums, thanks to Patel who bulldozed their homes and gave their lands to somebody who came from somewhere. He is doing just the same in Lakshadweep.

Patel’s aura was so powerful that it drove the Dadra & Nagar-Haveli MP to suicide in 2021. Though Patel was specifically mentioned in the suicide note as responsible for the ‘injustice, insult and bias’ that drove the MP to the extreme step, the law did not deem it necessary to take action against the great man.

If a Parliamentarian cannot survive Patel’s tyranny, how can simple fisherfolk do? Patel is selling Lakshadweep in the name of tourism. There is hardly any place left in those islands for developing tourism.

Is it about tourism really? Patel brought the pandemic to the islands with his villainous plans. He brought alcohol to the islands. He stole the people’s food, especially the school children’s. 200-odd schoolteachers were dismissed summarily. He closed down dairy farms. He threw the local people out of jobs. Even the sub-divisional magistrates were thrown out and Patel’s North-Indian chamchas have been appointed in their place.

Isn’t Patel a phenomenon?

Patel is the New India’s phenomenal metaphor. He is the pimp between the government and the corporate trader.

PS. Written for Indispire Edition 376: Write a post on the phenomenon called Praful Khoda Patel. #PrafulKhodaPatel

Comments

  1. This is shocking! Is there no light at the end of the tunnel for this country?...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. My prediction is that we're moving towards full dictatorship. In March 2014,i had predicted that Modi would ruin India.

      Delete
  2. Hari OM
    My heart is rent asunder at the path government has taken in India... I had seen the early signs, even as I resided there. It is a fascist path, there is no denying it. And that it is done in the name of "Hinduism" is a scandal beyond words.

    Sadly, in my beloved Australia, there is also such a buffoon - though nothing as overt... and equally here in the UK. I am at a loss to understand, when we have come so far, that the world has turned back on itself and so many have built a 'them versus us' wall around themselves. That leaders think themselves beyond touching... YAM xx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's surprising that many countries are turning fascist in varying degrees. The basic reason is greed. Religion has nothing to do with it. People like Modi misuse religion for ulterior motives because they know it's the easiest thing to do in India.

      Delete
  3. It's shocking that 21st century leaders are the near incarnation of Hitler& Mussolini. Citizens of India should be aware of their peril existence in the clutches of BJP and RSS. Let's join hands to bring these distorters down.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, India should unite against these frauds who masquerade as nationalists.

      Delete
  4. While the world is moving ahead , we are walking backwards .
    Dropping our own people towards a never ending dark tunnel ,oops I see a light "Vikaas'!2024!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Vikas for certain people is creation of hell where paradise existed.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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

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

William and the autumn of life

William and I were together only for one year, but our friendship has grown stronger year after year. The duration of that friendship is going to hit half a century. In the meanwhile both he and I changed many places. William was in Kerala when I was in Shillong. He was in Ireland when I was in Delhi. Now I am in Kerala where William is planning to migrate back. We were both novices of a religious congregation for one year at Kotagiri in Tamil Nadu. He was older than me by a few years and far more mature too. But we shared a cordial rapport which kept us in touch though we went in unexpected directions later. William’s conversations had the same pattern back then and now too. I’d call it Socratic. He questions a lot of things that you say with the intention of getting to the depth of the matter. The last conversation I had with him was when I decided to stop teaching. I mention this as an example of my conversations with William. “You are a good teacher. Why do you want to stop

X the variable

X is the most versatile and hence a very precious entity in mathematics. Whenever there is an unknown quantity whose value has to be discovered, the mathematician begins with: Let the unknown quantity be x . This A2Z series presented a few personalities who played certain prominent roles in my life. They are not the only ones who touched my life, however. There are so many others, especially relatives, who left indelible marks on my psyche in many ways. I chose not to bring relatives into this series. Dealing with relatives is one of the most difficult jobs for me. I have failed in that task time and again. Miserably sometimes. When I think of relatives, O V Vijayan’s parable leaps to my mind. Father and little son are on a walk. “Be careful lest you fall,” father warns the boy. “What will happen if I fall?” The boy asks. The father’s answer is: “Relatives will laugh.” One of the harsh truths I have noticed as a teacher is that it is nearly impossible to teach your relatives – nephews

Zorba’s Wisdom

Zorba is the protagonist of Nikos Kazantzakis’s novel Zorba the Greek . I fell in love with Zorba the very first time I read the novel. That must have been in my late 20s. I read the novel again after many years. And again a few years ago. I loved listening to Zorba play his santuri . I danced with him on the Cretan beaches. I loved the devil inside Zorba. I called that devil Tomichan. Zorba tells us the story of a monk who lived on Mount Athos. Father Lavrentio. This monk believed that a devil named Hodja resided in him making him do all wrong things. Hodja wants to eat meet on Good Friday, Hodja wants to sleep with a woman, Hodja wants to kill the Abbot… The monk put the blame for all his evil thoughts and deeds on Hodja. “I’ve a kind of devil inside me, too, boss, and I call him Zorba!” Zorba says. I met my devil in Zorba. And I learnt to call it Tomichan. I was as passionate as Zorba was. I enjoyed life exuberantly. As much as I was allowed to, at least. The plain truth is