Tomichan Matheikal's blog

Our ancient forefathers were nomadic foragers.  They went from place to place in search of food.  Animals which were not dangerous were hunted.  At some time in history, some of those foragers decided that they were tired of the constant chasing after food.  They chose to settle down and cultivate their own food.  Some animals were domesticated too. Animals were not used to domestic life.  They were used to roaming freely without any master to boss over their movements except the laws of nature which demanded constant vigilance against predators.  Man was one of those predators. But man was different from the other predators because he had a more evolved brain which told him that it was to his advantage to hunt the male sheep or the old ones, leaving the females to breed and also to provide milk.  But male sheep were also required for the breeding process since there was no genetic technology in those days.  Hence man resorted to selective killing of the males.  The aggre

Rahul Gandhi regaled the nation with the threat of an earthquake-like assault on PM Modi.  Far from an earthquake, there was not even a wind that could stir the slenderest willow stem.  That’s one of the deadliest tragedies the country is facing today: no opposition worth the name.    In Kerala where I now live there is a species of birds whose Malayalam name translates as ‘Bum-shaking bird’.  This little bird’s bum keeps on shaking whenever it alights from flight.  The typical Malayali humour has it that the Bum-shaker thinks that there is an earthquake because it shakes its tail.  Rahul Gandhi has become the Bum-shaker of contemporary Indian politics. It's time Rahul learnt that his grandmother and her present successor share too many personality traits One wonders why Rahul Gandhi issued the threat of exposing no smaller a figure than the Prime Minister of the country only to back out leaving the entire nation baffled.  Mr Gandhi owes an explanation to the natio

Thomas Jefferson who drafted the famous American Declaration of Independence which contains the oft-quoted phrase that “all men are created equal” owned about 200 slaves when he wrote that and never set them free even upon his death .  It doesn’t mean Jefferson was a fraud or even a hypocrite.  Rather it points to certain bizarre truths about social systems and the beliefs which create them.  The Americans during Jefferson’s time did not even consider Negroes as human beings.  Negroes were subhuman, according to the beliefs that upheld the American social system of the time. All social systems are built upon certain beliefs most of which may not stand up to rational analysis.  The ancient Indian caste system or many other social practices such as Sati were not based on any objective truths.  Social systems are created by certain individuals in order to protect their interests by subordinating the interests of others.  It was not mere selfishness either.  More than selfishne

Every narcissist loves to leave a mark wherever possible.  Writing is the easiest way to produce marks.  Ink is indelible.  That’s why democracy uses ink to brand every voter.  And now I have a ruler who uses the same ink to brand anyone who takes out her own money from the bank.  Source I have had so many rulers that I am not surprised by anything anymore.  They came from all sorts of places crossing oceans and mountains just for leaving their marks.  They left their marks in the wombs of my women too.  That’s also a kind of writing; a rewriting of history.  The deepest marks are made in history.  The Mughals did it best, I think.  Long, long before them came somebody who wrote in Sanskrit.  They were the best, perhaps.  They wrote the Vedas.  Then they wrote the end of the Vedas and called them Upaniashads though Vedanta was a more logical name.  But the Vedas never ended.  The Vedas continue to live even today while the Upanishads died natural deaths.  Religious ritu

Farmers' Protest in Surat Source: The Indian Express The farmers in PM Modi’s own state poured litres of milk and threw kilograms of food grains on the road two days back in protest against the non-availability of valid currency.  There are protests in other states too against the restrictions put on cooperative banks on which farmers and small traders rely heavily. If we analyse the social media including blogs, we’ll discover that it is the middle class that supports Modi’s tilting at the windmills of black money.  The middle class has its own morality whose hypocrisy was exposed brilliantly by Bernard Shaw in the character of Alfred Doolittle.  The middle class pretends to be moral while it is far more immoral than any other class.  It will discover all the loopholes in any given system and use those loopholes for their most selfish purposes all the while assuming that they are the most patriotic, religious and righteous people in the world. The middle class is t

Ten days are over after the Prime Minister’s overnight reform of demonetisation.  There’s no sign of adequate valid currency reaching the people.  On the contrary, works are held up, workers go without money to buy food, medical treatments are affected, farmers are unable to buy seeds and cultivate their lands, those who have agricultural produce at home cannot sell them because traders don’t have valid money to pay...  How long does the country want this situation to prolong? The Supreme Court has already expressed its apprehensions about possible riots in the country if adequate valid currency is not made available.  The country can’t expect people to die of starvation when they have their hard-earned money lying in the banks. Moreover, do Indians deserve this situation?  80% of Indians live on less than Rs10,000 per month. They don’t have any black money.  But it is they who actually suffer from the current situation.  The innocent are punished.  The really guilty know

Money is a game changer.  Is PM Modi playing a big game with the currency MODIfication?  West Bengal BJP deposited Rs 3 crore days before PM Modi declared high denominations as black money .  We can be quite sure that PM Modi’s friends such as Ambani and Adani were also informed about the deal earlier.  Ambani, for example, opened up Jio with a lot of freebies a few days prior to PM Modi’s announcement. Nothing comes free in this world. Our Conqueror Congress had too much money in the black.  It became the most corrupt party in India under the leadership Sonia Gandhi and her Amul Rahul.  Rahul goes around attracting media attention (media is a bunch of gossipers wearing the latest cut of the coat) posing in front of some crowded ATM counter and saying that he can’t change his 500 rupee notes.  His party’s assets were burned on the banks of Ganga and Yamuna, the most holy and most polluted rivers in the world.  That is the real game.  You burn the enemy in/on his/her own hol

Joseph S Nye, American political scientist, mooted the concept of ‘soft power’ as a means of gaining ascendancy in the world.  Military and economy give a country its hard power.  Soft power is its ability to persuade other countries to want what it wants them to want. Mr Modi is getting the support of many countries against Pakistan using persuasive tactics as well as realpolitik.  He is relying more on soft power and rightly so.  No one but perverted minds would want a war especially between India and Pakistan because such a war is most likely to escalate into a world war. Soft power can be effective only when it rests solidly on the foundation of substantial hard power.  It is also related to culture and ideology.  The Western civilisation spread rapidly across the world because it was firmly established on a secure hard power foundation.  America was a practical El Dorado. Russia’s communism crumpled when its hard power hit the dust.  Soft power becomes impotent wit

Mr Narendra Modi has come a long way from the Gujarat of 2002.  The real war is a psychological one, he has learnt.  It is very easy to rouse up the rabble and set ablaze anything.  Rousing up people’s imagination is the tough job.  A real leader’s task is precisely that.  And that’s what Mr Modi did in Kerala yesterday. Look at what he said in Kerala yesterday.  India will not forget Uri.  Mr Modi knows as well as Mark Antony that public memory is like the thistledown caught in the wind.  And Mr Modi is as good an orator as Mark Antony.  He knows how to win over hearts just like the Roman conqueror.  “When we think of Kerala, we think of God’s Own Country, it has an impression of purity and holiness,” he said to the cheering crowd.  “When I visited gulf countries recently, I wanted to meet my people from Kerala living there.” He knows that Kerala’s economy is sustained by the Malayalis working in those desert sands.  “ Kerala ke karyartaon ko vishwas dilata hoon ki aapki tap

I salute Mr Modi for his latest speeches.   On Saturday, he lambasted the gau rakshaks in no uncertain terms.   He called them anti-socials who are trying to masquerade their maleficence with feigned religiousness.   He has appealed to the state governments to take stern action against such criminals. Today addressing a rally in Hyderabad, he said, “If you want to attack, attack me and not Dalits. If you want to shoot, shoot me and not Dalits.”  Better late than never.  The PM should have spoken out long ago when certain sections of the country’s population or their religious places were attacked right from the time he took over the highest political authority in the country.   The PM should have spoken out when Kalburgi, Dabholkar and Pansare were murdered brutally for supporting the causes of secularism.  Not even the protests from eminent writers of the country who returned their Sahitya Akademi awards provoked the PM into taking the issue seriously.  Rohith Ve

Delivering the concluding address at BJP's National Executive yesterday, Mr Modi presented seven mantras to his party workers.  Empathy and self-restraint are two of the seven resounding mantras.  The problem is that they only resounded like some hollow echoes in a wilderness because they were accompanied with Modi's abiding taunting of the Congress.  All those great mantras lost the wind in their wings because of the cognitive dissonance that accompanied the rhetoric. Empathy and taunting don't go hand in hand.  Mere rhetoric has never swayed any heart so far.  That's why Modi's speeches make no ripples in spite of his being an excellent orator. Perhaps, the most pathetic fate that Modi is inflicting upon his party is the compulsive need to flog the Congress even after the latter has become as good as a carcass.  Modi should deliver himself and his party from all forms of hatred which has marked them right from the beginning.  The BJP has to take positive steps

Hairstyle Style is the man.  I like Mr Modi’s cascading mane which is being groomed with much care.  I was always a fan of his beard especially since it helped me to justify my own bristles for which I am yet to find an admirer.  Now, having fallen in love with the PM’s mane, I’m thinking of letting my hair down especially behind my neck.  It may help me to keep quiet where I should speak up and blah-blah where I should shut up. Leadership Mr Modi doesn’t need any script.  He can speak to the audience any time anywhere without a script written by some political advisor.  Speak effectively too.  He is a born orator.  He knows the power of words and rhetoric.  He can sway his audience with those powers.  That’s the sign of a real leader.  Mr Modi is THE leader.  We deserve him.  Discovery of India I am about to complete a year of living in Kerala.  I’m yet to find any ragpicker in the state – whom I used to encounter every day in Delhi in dozens of places.  In f

The godman brought the world to the banks of the Yamuna and proved that India is a tolerant country.  He invited even Boutros Boutros Ghali who passed away a month ago and thus showed that India’s tolerance extends even to the world beyond.  The Prime Minister stood beside the godman and proclaimed that India had much “to offer to the world because of its cultural diversity.” When the PM was declaring his tolerance to the whole world from the banks of the Yamuna, the Milli Gazette published an article by Pushp Sharma with the headline: “ We don’t recruit Muslims”: says Modi govt’s Ayush Ministry .  The journalist had received the information through an RTI filed by him.  The godman’s Cultural Fest presided over by the Prime Minister was open to international diversity.  Is the country open to diversity within it?  If not, what was the Cultural Fest but a mere show, a gigantic exercise in hypocrisy?  Sri Sri Ravi Shankar was an ardent supporter of Mr Narendra Modi

No great leader emerges unless there is a crisis.  Mohandas Gandhi would have remained a mediocre lawyer had not the freedom struggle discovered the leadership qualities in him.  Abraham Lincoln would not have secured his present place in history without the crisis that challenged his potential in the form of the Civil War. Mr Narendra Modi has his historical opportunity now to prove his station in history.  India is faced with a crisis called nationalism. Nationalism, by definition, is excessive devotion to the interests of a particular nation-state.  It is valid when there is a threat to the autonomy of the nation-state.  India is not facing any such threat now.  Yet nationalism has become a craze among a sizeable section of the population.   When there is no threat to the nation, the only other reason for nationalist sentiments to breed and spread is a desire to dominate.  It is an urge to impose a certain culture or religion or some such thing over the others.  What

Source “I am happy dead than being alive,” said Rohith Vemula in his suicide note.  He “loved Science, Stars, Nature.”  His country gave him superstitions, communal hatred and hollow slogans.  He died feeling hollow in a country whose Prime Minister keeps mouthing beautiful slogans about development.  The other day, senior BJP leader Yashwant Sinha compared Mr Modi to Indira Gandhi with respect to the dictatorial style that marked both.  Of course, he had to retract later for obvious reasons. Is Mr Modi converting India into Police Raj as Indira Gandhi did during Emergency?  The way the protesters in Delhi were attacked by Mr Modi’s police indicates that the Prime Minister is trying to re-create Gujarat in Delhi.  He probably hopes to extend it gradually to the entire country.  Or, maybe, it’s just the only way he knows to handle dissension with.  Senior leaders of the party were sidelined long ago by Mr Modi.  Not that those leaders would have worked wonders.  But

On the New Year’s Day, the government of India slashed the price of aviation turbine fuel by 10 percent. This is the second reduction in the price of ATF in a month’s time.  The New Year gift to the common person was a hike in the price of cooking gas.  The price of non-subsidised LPG was hiked by Rs 49.50 per cylinder.  LPG price was hiked on 1 Dec by Rs 61.50.  Prior to that, rates were increased by Rs. 27.5 per cylinder on November 1. The flight ticket rates have not changed though ATF rates were cut.  The benefit does not trickle down to the passengers.  The corporate sector harvests the benefits.  The trickle down effect of neoliberalism is a myth.  When the price of petroleum shot up to $140 per barrel, Dr Manmohan Singh managed to keep the price of petrol in India at Rs 72 per litre by providing subsidies so that the common people would not be taxed too much.  Now when the international price hovers around $37 the prices of petrol and diesel in India refuse to come d

“Every Indian has a right over everything that India has.  From this, he or she is free to weave his or her dreams.  The India of tomorrow will have 125 crore such dreams, and will be built on the same.  We will not only empower our citizens with the ability to dream, we will enable them with the capacity to actualise their dreams.” The passage is quoted verbatim from the 2014 Election Manifesto of the Bharatiya Janata Party which went on to win the elections.  A year and a half is not a period long enough for materialising such a grand vision.  But it is a period long enough to move in the direction, at least a few steps.  Modi at Sivagiri math in Kerala recently Instead of empowering the dreams of the citizens, they are being driven deeper and deeper into a quagmire of rising prices of food and communal dis-ease, in addition to all the old problems of corruption in politics, unemployment, widening gap between the rich and the poor, and so on.  Worse, certain concepts