Tomichan Matheikal's blog

Kerala Governor Rajendra Arlekar asked the state to observe ‘Partition Horror Day’ on 14 Aug instead of celebrating the country’s Independence. His organisation, the RSS, as well as its ideological sibling the Hindu Mahasabha, had explicitly directed its members not to celebrate the Independence on 14-15 Aug 1947. From Bombay Chronicle, 9 Aug 1947 Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins gave us a graphic description of what the RSS did on 15 Aug 1947, in their classic book Freedom at Midnight . When the rest of India celebrated its new Independence, the RSS hoisted its own flag, “an orange triangle, emblazoned upon which was the symbol that, in a slightly modified form, had terrorized Europe for a decade, the swastika.” About 500 RSS men stood saluting the swastika on 15 Aug 1947 in Poona. Lapierre and Collins describe the RSS as a “para-fascist movement” whose members “saw themselves as the heirs to those ancient Aryans.” Rajendra Arlekar is an RSS man. He has been doing whate...

One of the infinite ironies about Narendra Modi’s India is its flagrant censorship while claiming to be the most tolerant civilisation. A Guardian report today informs us that Arundhati Roy’s 2020 book, Azadi , is banned in Kashmir for promoting a “false narrative and secessionism.” Being a fan of Ms Roy’s rebellious spirit, I buy her books as they are published. I had reviewed this book ( Azadi ) back in 2020 when it was published. The Congress government that ruled India for a very long period, before Modi’s rhetoric mesmerised the Indian electorate, was highly flawed. Corruption ran in its every single vein. Yet it was far better than what Modi brought in its place. The glaring hypocrisy of the Congress was a glue that held India together, Ms Roy says in this censored book of hers. What she means to say is that though secularism was not practised sincerely or consistently the pretence of it acted as a binding force that maintained a kind of social and political equilibrium. T...

When Narendra Modi posed for one of his infinite photo-ops framed against the gopuram of the ancient Gangaikonda-Cholapuram Temple on 27 July 2025, one of the biggest ironies of history was created. Gangaikonda-Cholapuram was the capital of Rajendra Chola (r 1014-1044) who was much different from Modi upon whom the BJP leader H Raja conferred the title of the “Living Gangai Kondan”. Rajendra Chola’s empire was marked by pluralism. He built temples but was not a religious bigot. The differences don’t end there. They just begin. Rajendra Chola was a Tamil ruler and a symbol of Dravidian pride. A man like Modi, who is using every means at his disposal to impose Aryan-centric ideology and suppress India’s diverse cultures, religions, and languages, can never truly wear the mantle once borne by Rajendra Chola. Modi’s very presence in the ancient Chola capital looks like a grotesque appropriation of a legacy that resists his political agenda.   The Chola Empire patronised multipl...

When I saw the above picture of Narendra Modi in the latest issue of India Today , what rushed to my mind instantly was a Malayalam film song Veshangal Janmangal … Life is a series of roles dressed up for the occasion. There are different costumes for celebrations and mourning, and there are people who can shed one and move into the other instantly. Are your smiles genuine? Do your tears mean sadness? Or, are they all costumes that suit the occasion? Are you just an actor who plays certain roles? Is the entire cosmos just a gigantic theatre for you? Where can we find the real you beneath all the costumes you keep changing day in and day out? Have you relinquished dharma in favour of cravings? Truth over expediency?  

Delivering a lecture in Kerala the other day, N Ram, former editor of The Hindu , described Narendra Modi’s style of governance as “incremental authoritarianism.”   Democracy is slowly but steadily being eroded in India by Modi. How does he do it? ·       Consolidation of executive power ·       Undermining of judicial independence or press freedom ·       Weakening of opposition parties ·       Use of state apparatus to target dissent ·       Erosion of civil liberties ·       Nationalist rhetoric used to delegitimize critics ·       Misinformation and disinformation spread via all available forms of media and propaganda machinery ·       Disdain for the Constitution of the country The Parliament is a mere scarecrow today. A scarecrow in a Waste Land . Mr Modi doe...

From Times of India Donald Trump is a big bullshitter but Narendra Modi is far more sinister. This is what Harry Frankfurt, author of On Bullshit , would have said, and what Meera Nanda, author of many books, actually said. I haven’t read the books by either of them. I’ve read quite a few articles written by Meera Nanda in various Indian periodicals. The latest is an interview with her by a Malayalam weekly ( Mathrubhumi ). In that interview, Nanda differentiates between ‘big lies’ and ‘deep lies’ and goes on to illustrate the two concepts with the examples of Trump and Modi. Trump is a ‘big liar’ while Modi is a ‘deep liar.’ Both are similar in their respective ‘visions’ of America-First and Hinduism-First, Prof Nanda says. Both endanger the secular fabric of their societies. However, Trump is yet to declare Christian nationalism as the official American stance while Modi has declared Hindu nationalism as the state ideology. How do the two go about materialising their vision? Tr...

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...

Is India joining the ranks of North Korea, China, and Russia when it comes to the freedom of the media? India’s rank in the World Press Freedom Index as well as many other similar indices has been declining rapidly in the recent years. The cover story of the December issue of The Caravan magazine, one of the few remaining independent journals in the country, is about how Mukesh Ambani has become the media manager of Narendra Modi. Ambani’s Reliance bought News 18 in July 2014. The year is significant. Modi had just come to power in Delhi. Eventually News 18 bought off many TV channels and journals. The Caravan informs us that using these media Modi is doing exactly what Kim Jong Un has been doing in North Korea, Putin in Russia, and Xi Jinping in China. The first major casualty, when the government takes control of the mass media, is Suppression of free speech and dissent . The Caravan reveals how scores of journalists who refused to propagate what the government wanted the...

Modi was in Kerala the other day. His speech was distressingly interspersed with the ominous phrase “Modi’s guarantee”. For example, he would say: “Every Indian will have a toilet, this is Modi’s guarantee” or “India will be a $5 trillion economy, this is Modi’s guarantee.” This morning, the latest edition of a Malayalam weekly, Sathyadeepam , reached me along with other subscribed publications. I was impressed by its editorial. Please allow me translate it and bring it to you because I think it deserves to be read by many more people than the limited subscribers of Sathyadeepam . Those who wish to read it in the original Malayalam can do so here . The translation is not literal, I have taken the liberty to edit it for the sake of better clarity to a non-Keralite reader. I hope the Sathyadeepam editor will forgive my transgressions. M odi is not the guarantee, the country's constitution is . Since the prime minister has the constitutional obligation to ensure development and se...

Half of the world’s population will go to the polls this year. Forty countries will be voting for a new government in 2024. That will be 3.2 billion people exercising their democratic privilege of choosing who will govern them. If we add the local body elections and county/state elections, then the number of countries going to the polls will rise to 76. Open Society Foundations of the USA conducted a survey a few months back to study the health of democracy in various countries. The survey covered 36,000 adults each (18 years and above) from 30 countries including India. That is a mammoth survey. Some of the findings may be a little disturbing for those who love democracy.  A large number of youngsters seem to be losing faith in democracy, according to the survey results. While among the people in the age group of 56 and above, 26% preferred a strong leader to democracy, the percentage of youngsters (18-35 years) who made the same choice was 35. Nearly half of this latter gr...

India Today to Narendra Modi : What about creation of jobs? Narendra Modi : As for creation of jobs, it has been the topmost priority of my government. All our efforts have been geared to this task. The above question-answer is from India Today ’s latest edition, which is an out and out eulogy to Narendra Modi who is given the Newsmaker of the Year Award by the weekly. Now let’s look at a news item from India Today ’s website: A Romanian flight carrying 276 Indian passengers landed in Mumbai early on Tuesday after being grounded in France four days ago over suspected human trafficking . It was not human trafficking. It was a whole airplane of people leaving India illegally but voluntarily to find jobs in the USA or Canada or any country better than Modi’s India. Ironically, most of these ‘illegal’ jobseekers are from Modi’s own Gujarat which he claims in the India Today interview as the state made ideal by him. “When I became chief minister of Gujarat in 2001, the size of i...

“If you keep doing the same things, you will keep getting the same results,” Dave Ramsey said. It doesn’t matter who Dave Ramsey is. I don’t know, in fact. Albert Einstein could have said that as well. From the time BJP came to power in Delhi, India has been doing more or less the same thing: sectarian politics which favours one particular community and marginalises all others. Since the majority of Indians belong to the community favoured by BJP, no other party could arrive at an effective strategy for winning elections. People obviously want favours from those in power. And BJP is giving those favours to the majority. The majority will then vote BJP. BJP continues to rule. Happily. Till date. And so some genius in the other camp struck upon a strategy. Divide the majority community along caste lines. This is not a new strategy at all. This was effectively made use of in all the Hindi belt states earlier many times by many parties. What is new now is that almost all the non-BJP ...