Tomichan Matheikal's blog

Words lost their souls and turned into ghosts             that haunted the pulpits and public places. The King is a great orator who conjures up             paradises of soulless words and gimmicks. Verbal ghosts are hungry for blood             that was shed in the dark alleys of bygone days. They travel on witches’ brooms between             Rama’s Treta yuga and the Mahatma’s Kali yuga, Their forked tongues spitting poison             presumed as nectar by fortune-seekers,             the sexless witches impotent to make love. They make war, They make places of worship, Where the gods are always hungry,             creatures of infinite hunger,             they swallow love and truth; They are gods of words,             words turned ghosts,                         ghosts that haunt a nation.

It was a cold morning on 30 Jan 1948.  Nathuram Godse, Narayan Apte and Vishnu Karkare met together once again in Retiring Room number 6 at Old Delhi Railway Station. Godse had failed in his two earlier attempts to kill Gandhi.  He did not want to fail again.  “Third time success,” he said half jokingly to his friends. “There will be heavy police guard for Gandhi especially because of the murder attempt just ten days back,” said Godse.  Godse suggested they should buy an old camera which needed a tripod and a black hood.  He would pose as a photographer and conceal the pistol inside the base of the camera. “Nobody uses that sort of a camera nowadays,” said Apte.  He dismissed it as “a bad idea.” “Disguise yourself as a Muslim woman wearing a burqa,” suggested Karkare.  “There are many Muslim women who attend Gandhi’s prayers.  After all, he is their saviour, isn’t he?”  He spat out his hatred.   “No,” said Godse having put on the burqa that was brought in. 

The real question is not whether the original Preamble to the Indian Constitution contained the words ‘secularist’ and ‘socialist’ but what the present India really wants to be.  It is not a matter of words as much as about intentions and motives. A flashback from history Delhi, June 1947 Louis Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of the British Raj, Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of independent India, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, and a few others are giving the final touches to the governments of independent India and Pakistan.  “You be the first Governor-General of independent India,” says Nehru to Mountbatten who is visibly dismayed. It is a gesture of gratitude and appreciation from the magnanimous people of India to a person who has been working heart and soul for the past four months keeping in mind the welfare of both the countries that are being created. Jinnah has already declared himself the Governor-General of Pakistan. “

The ad: see the watermark   In its advertisement - DAVP22201/13/0048/1415, which was published on 26 January - the government quotes the preamble of India's Constitution as "We the people of India, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a SOVEREIGN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC...." as opposed to the genuine version that states: “WE, THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a SOVEREIGN SOCIALIST SECULAR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC and to secure to all its citizens..." Mr Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister, is averse to both socialism and secularism.  He is adept at making use of surreptitious practices to achieve his objectives.  The way he tried to foist a lot of ordinances on the country, in spite of his party enjoying the majority in the Lok Sabha, was snubbed by the President himself.  There are many activities going on behind invisible curtains, activities that may remind one of Hitler and his propagandists, activities that w

Dear Arvind,          I’m not surprised by your latest act of sob-sob over not being invited to the Republic Day celebrations.  You must have been particularly peeved by my presence in the VIP enclosure being chaperoned and parasoled by a senior security officer.  Come on, man, grow up.  Stop being a silly whimpering kid. You’ve always been a kid, I know.  When I shared the platform with you during the India Against Corruption days, I saw through your silly infantile idealism.  You are a childish dreamer, Arvind.  You dream of an India without corruption.  I have grown up and grown out of impossible dreams. I know you haven’t forgotten those days when I called Mr Narendra Modi all kinds of names for your sake.  I thought you were the leader, the Messiah, that India was waiting for.  But I am now grown up.  I know who the real leader of India is.  I know how the game is played. Grow up, Arvind.  Shirk off your childish dreams and learn the politics of the adults.  Le

The American President, Barack Obama, has already embraced the Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, in the highly girdled airport in Delhi.  This is the second jaadu ki jhappi between the leaders of two nations with similar global interests.  Obama’s country has been the world’s moral police since the second world war and Modi’s India aspires to wrench that hegemony.  About two decades ago, Samuel P Huntington wrote in his famous and controversial book, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order , that “If at some point India supplants East Asia as the world’s economically most rapidly developing area, the world should be prepared for extended disquisitions on the superiority of Hindu culture...”  Interestingly, Huntington added that the disquisition would have to be about “the contributions of the caste system to economic development” and a fundamentalist assertion of indigenous culture.  Huntington was not a divinatory astrologer but a Harvard University p

Indian history is poised to take some interesting diversions.  One of the many rewritings will be the deification of Nathuram Godse, the killer of Mahatma Gandhi.  The Hindu Mahasabha has been threatening (or promising, depending on which side you are) to construct a temple with Godse as the deity.   As India is going to celebrate the 65 th anniversary of its secular Constitution in a function solemnised by none other than the President of a country which exported secularism whenever it found it opportunistic to do so, it may be worthwhile to take a look at the contribution of the new god being added to the country's overcrowded pantheon.  Poona, 15 August 1947 – a flashback adapted from Freedom at Midnight by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre Independence from British rule is being celebrated.  The flag slowly moving up the staff in the centre of the 500 men assembled is not the flag of the independent India.  It is a saffron triangle with the swastika emblazon