Tomichan Matheikal's blog

The cover story of the latest issue of The Caravan [March 2025] is titled The Balakot Misdirection: How the Modi government drew political mileage out of military failure . The essay that runs to over 20 pages is a bold slap on the glowing cheek of India’s Prime Minister. The entire series of military actions taken by Narendra Modi against Pakistan, right from the surgical strike of 2016, turns out to be mere sham in this essay. War was used by all inefficient kings in the past in order to augment the patriotism of the citizens, particularly in times of trouble. For example, the Controller of the Exchequer taxed the citizens as much as he thought they could bear without violent protest and when he was wrong the King declared a war against a neighbouring country. Patriotism, nationalism, and religion – the best thing about these is that a king can use them all very effectively to control the citizens’ sentiments. Nowadays a lot of leaders emulate the ancient kings’ examples enviabl...

Neeti Nair Book Discussion The epigraph of Neeti Nair’s book, Hurt Sentiment [see previous two posts for more on the book, links below], is a quote from Pakistani poet Fahmida Riaz (1946-2018).             In the past I used to think with sadness             today I laughed a lot as I thought             you turned out exactly like us             we were not two nations, brother! ‘We’ refer to Pakistan and India. India has now become a Hindu Pakistan with a Hindu Jinnah as prime minister. It is said that we tend to become like our enemies. The Hindu Jinnah’s India has proved that even nations can become like their enemies. Neeti Nair’s book has only four chapters plus an introduction and an epilogue. I discussed the first two chapters in the last two pos...

Book Discussion The Indian National Congress Party is repeatedly accused of Muslim appeasement by Narendra Modi and his followers. Did the Congress appease Muslims more than it did the Hindus? Neeti Nair deals with that question in the second chapter of her book, Hurt Sentiments , which I introduced in my previous post: The Triumph of Godse . The first instance of a book being banned in India occurred as an effort to placate a religious community. That was in 1955. It was done by none other than the first prime minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru. The book was Aubrey Menen’s retelling of The Ramayana . Menen’s writing has a fair share of satire and provocative incisiveness. Nehru banned the sale of the book in India (it was published in England) in order to assuage the wounded Hindu sentiments. The book “outrages the religious feelings of the Hindus,” Nehru’s government declared. That was long before the Indira Gandhi’s Congress government banned Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses ...

Book Discussion Nathuram Godse killed Mahatma Gandhi in order to save Hindus from emasculation. Gandhi was making Hindu men effeminate, incapable of retaliation. Revenge and violence are required of brave men, according to Godse. Gandhi stripped the Hindu men of their bravery and transmuted them into “sheep and goats,” Godse wrote in an article titled ‘Non-resisting tendency accomplished easily by animals.’ Gandhi had to die in order to salvage the manliness of the Hindu men. This argument that formed the foundation of Godse’s self-defence after Gandhi’s assassination was later modified by Narendra Modi et al as: “ Hindu khatre mein hai ,” Hindus are in danger. So Godse has reincarnated now.   Godse’s hatred of non-Hindus has now become the driving force of Hindutva in India. It arose primarily because of the hurt that Godse’s love for his religious community was hurt. His Hindu sentiments were hurt, in other words. Gandhi, Godse, and the minority question is the theme of the...

According to the data presented in the Rajya Sabha by the government of India’s ministry of external affairs, more than 200,000 Indians are giving up their citizenship every year. The number is increasing rapidly year after year even when the prime minister keeps telling us that we are going to be a $5-trillion economy. Well, Indians have stopped taking their prime minister seriously, it seems. When we realise that Indians are choosing to be Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Nepalis, and Burmese, we may think the news is fake. But the information is given by our own government and it is true. Too many Indians are leaving India. “For rich Indians, home is no longer where the heart is,” writes Prabhu Chawla in the Sunday Standard , pointing out that 4300 millionaires including stars like Virat Kohli and family have abandoned India in 2024. Last year, the figure of such millionaires was 5100. In other words, it is not only the ambitious middle class that chooses to quit India. They are no...

India’s Prime Minister has promised to make the country a $5-trillion economy by 2027. My knowledge of economics is zilch. Even if I try to learn it, I don’t think I will understand. For example, economists will take the total assets of Mukesh Ambani and mine, calculate the average, and say that my average assets amount to $52 billion, half of Ambani’s $104 billion. Mukesh Ambani’s assets amount to INR 87,31,75,68,00,000. I don’t even know how to count that figure, let alone calculate the average. Even if you find the average of that and my assets [ridiculous suggestion?] and tell me, still the figure will remain beyond my grasp (both literally and metaphorically). [Black monies don’t count in economic stats, I guess.] But India may become a $5-trillion economy by 2027. Because, as I understand, the average assets of each Indian are calculated the way I described in simplistic terms above. If you google India’s skewed economy , you will understand better what I’m saying. Here is a ...

  AI-generated illustration Shashi Tharoor described India the other day as a democratically elected dictatorship. He was speaking about the imminent arrest of Arundhati Roy for her remark on Kashmir. I don’t question Tharoor’s description because it’s true. In spite of the thrashing received in the last elections, Narendra Modi has refused to change his style of governing the country. He still thinks he has a divine mandate to rule India as per his whims and fancies. I have been more inclined to view the Modi government as a humongous extortionist. GST is the simple reason. Modi’s government has been collecting unjustifiable amounts in the name of GST. Let me give only a couple of personal examples. The other day I received a notification from my health insurers. It’s time to renew my policy if I wish to continue its benefits. The company doesn’t seem quite eager to have me continue it. My agent tells me that once a client turns 65, medical insurance business loses interest ...

Book Title: Caged Tiger: How too much government is holding Indians back Author: Subhashish Bhadra Publisher: Bloomsbury 2023 Pages: 303 For over two centuries the British held India captive. And then Indian politicians did the same. This book shows you how India’s leaders held their own country captive almost all through – with the exception of the first few decades. 77 years is not too short a period of time for a nation, especially one that is as huge as India, to reclaim itself from the ravages of history. What has India achieved in fact? “Governments have failed to provide the basic needs of life, such as clean air and water. India has 22 of the 30 most polluted cities in the world, with a child dying every 3 minutes from inhaling toxic pollutants. Also, India has failed to translate its remarkable economic gains into better lives for its most vulnerable; 35 percent of children under five are stunted…” Now, even Bangladesh is doing better than India though it “is poo...

India’s ruling party, Narendra Modi’s own party, wants Indians to celebrate Valentine’s Day as Cow Hugging Day . Valentine is a Western concept, they inform us. India has a superior sexual morality. Like what you see in the classical temples of Khajuraho in Madhya Pradesh, the Sun Temples of Odisha and Gujarat, Virupaksa of Hampi in Karnataka, the Jain temples of Rajasthan, the Sathyamurthy Perumal Temple of Tamil Nadu, and the Lingaraj Temple of Odisha. If I post pictures of the sculptures from those temples, Google may block my post as obscene because Google is Western and India is the West’s Guru now. But let me try anyway to put a representative pic or two here, just to give you an idea of what ancient Indian civilisation was offering to its temple devotees.  Just Google for Indian temple erotica for a lot, lot more India is a country that gave Kamasutra to the world. Kamasutra is not just a sex manual though any average man and some women too will love it as that. It descr...

  I was planning to take a holiday from my #WriteAPageADay commitment today when a friend’s message on WhatsApp woke me up this morning with the blow of a sledgehammer. The message was sent last night. As I am an early sleeper, it got my attention only this morning. And I decided that the message demanded more than a personal response, because I’m being bombarded with similar views from many sources these days. The crux of the message is this: As times change, politics need change too. Congress has lost itself. Marxism is redundant now. The right-wing politics of BJP is the ideal option for today’s India. “ If the majority Muslim countries can be declared Islamist, India (Bharat) can also declare herself Hindu Rashtra .” The message was written and sent by a Christian who is the principal of a Christian school in Bengaluru. He is a knowledgeable person with a doctorate in English literature, the morality of Thomas Hardy’s fatalism being his specialisation. I read his messa...

About twenty years ago, I made my first trek in the Garhwal Himalayas. Hemkunt, at an elevation of 15,000 feet above sea level was our destination. The principal of my school in Delhi at that time was a passionate mountaineer and it was he who arranged this, and later a few more, trek for the senior students and their teachers. I was not quite enthusiastic initially because I doubted my stamina to make the climbs. But I was happy that I went on those treks. I am happier now, looking back. They were quite unique and rare experiences. The first time in my life that I stood on the side of the highway and looked at the queer phenomenon of the Alaknanda and the Bhagirathi Rivers merging into one to become the Ganga at Devprayag was during that Hemkunt trip. It was queer because the Alaknanda is a crystal-clear river while the Bhagirathi is always turbulent. Their sources make the difference. The source is important. When I saw a picture of Devprayag in a Malayalam journal this morni...

Republic Day gave me a holiday after a long time. I used it for cleaning up my personal library. One of the tragic fates of books is they don’t stay with you for long. I lost most of my books because of the changes of my job-places. When I left Shillong in 2001, I left most of my books behind; I sold them to a college library. It wasn’t easy to transport things from the Northeast in those days. Moreover, my psychological condition was worse than my economic condition at that time and I sold whatever I could in order to get away from a place that had become a veritable hell for me. A few books were carried, however, to Delhi, my new place. I was going to Delhi without any hope. Nobody had offered me any job there. Maggie’s brother was there and he said, “Come if you wish.” He was more than kind. Magnanimous. Probably, he was concerned about his sister. I couldn’t obviously carry too many things to my brother-in-law’s flat in Delhi. That’s the major reason I got rid of my books. Bu...