Some Political Games

Politics is a game like chess. The pawns are sacrificed first. The King remains in the end on the board. The whole game is meant for keeping the king there till the end. Everybody else is dispensable. That’s what the system makes us believe. We all keep playing the game because we have no other choice if we wish to survive at all. That’s how the system is made to be.

The book I’m reading now is Farooq of Kashmir by Ashwini Bhatnagar and R C Ganjoo. There’s a lot of amusing info on the Abdullah family of Kashmir in this book. You know those facts perhaps. But there’s no harm in being reminded once again and to draw some parallels with our present ruler. I mean, it doesn’t matter whether you are an Abdullah or a Modi as long as you are a politician. The behavioural pattern is the same. 

Politics is a religion by itself. The ordinary people are the foolish devotees and the rulers are the gods. The angels are the crony capitalists who provide the funds, stolen from the ordinary folk through many devious ways such as nonrefundable bank loans.  

I’m still reading Farooq of Kashmir. Just wanted to share with you something that made me stop reading and start thinking. Start writing, rather.

Farooq Abdullah, his father Sheikh Abdullah, and his son Omar Abdullah have ruled Jammu & Kashmir for a long time. Just as Modi and Parivar will be doing in India for many more years. History is useless unless we get the parallel lessons right.

Sheikh Abdullah’s great-grandfather was a Hindu Brahmin who converted to Islam after meeting a Sufi preacher. His wife was the daughter of Michael Harry Nedou, a European Christian who had converted to Islam for marrying a Muslim girl he loved.

Where do we draw the line between religions? There was so much miscegenation in this country that there is sure to be some Muslim blood in every Hindu and vice versa. Buddhist blood too. Christian too. And perhaps some others too. Do you have the guts to go back really into history instead of playing with delusional myths?

How far will you go into the past re-creating history to cleanse your blood racially? One simple DNA test is enough to burst your myths that you call history.

But what really bothers me is not the DNA. It’s the politics of convenience. What provoked me to write this is the compromise that Yogi Dhirendra Brahmachari (DB) made with Farooq Abdulla for the sake of politics. DB was Indira Gandhi’s guru. Though he was a yogi, a humble and austere ascetic, he had more wealth than today’s Ambani or Adani. Political connections make you rich even if you don’t want to become rich. The simple, humble, austere yogi was catapulted to a Peacock Throne by politicians. Eventually he was the owner of a whole empire that included sprawling ashrams, the Shiva Gun Factory in Kashmir, two aircrafts which were always busy carrying politicians around, and a pure white length of linen that covered the nakedness of the humble, simple, ascetic yogi DB.

Farooq Abdullah must have gauged Dhirendra Brahmachari at first sight. Love at first sight, let’s say. Farooq demanded a night of pleasure at the yogi’s splendorous ashram. Farooq had a great time with a beautiful girl and many handsome boys at the ashram. Politics. With a little religion as spice.

That’s how it is. Politics and religion. An understanding among people who matter. An understanding that makes enemies of people in the streets while the leaders will have all the fun in resorts.

These people who matter also know how to keep the ordinary people out of the whole game. The pawns. They are to be sacrificed. They will play the game on the streets. They will die. The real game is won in splendid palaces by people wearing costumes of convenient hues.

Let’s come back to the present from Indira Gandhi and her Brahmachari. Just to know that nothing has changed in India. Except, may be, the way it’s all publicised. 

Oct 2021. India’s Prime Minister, Yogi, Priest, Vishwa Guru and many other things rolled into one, come on, give him a big hand, none other than His Highness (HH) Narendraji Modiji himself, visited the Pope in the Vatican. At that time, the Christian churches in Uttar Pradesh, a state governed by a yogi no lesser than Modiji, were being pulled down by Modiji’s partymen.

Eventually HH Narendraji Modiji met many other Christian leaders in many places including a star hotel in Kochi recently and they had splendid dinner parties. Ordinary fellows still fight on the streets in the name of these religions which actually bring their leaders together at splendid resorts.

Let me return to the Farooq book. I shall be here with more interesting stuff tomorrow. Trust me, I may be better entertainment than these leaders who are enjoying themselves in fabulous places at our cost. 

Sacred Heart Cathedral, Delhi

The latest costume, at Kashi Vishwanath temple

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