First, they used to call them “cow-vigilantes”. As liberal frustration piled up, this term seemed too mild to capture the true magnitude of their outrage. I cannot say for sure which liberal intellectual started using the term “cow-terrorist”, but here is an example from the Deputy Editor of the Huffington Post (India) who had only recently wanted to invent “caste terrorism” to counter “cow terrorism”:
Can you feel the rage? Well, it’s not enough. Those words simply aren’t severe enough. An article in the DailyO has now coined (to my knowledge) an even stronger term.
I’ll keep an eye out for further additions to the political vocabulary. These days, the great Barkha Dutt is also harping on getting the right term for these cow vigilantes (not something too soft like “son of a poor headmaster” I guess):
Meanwhile, you can read this blistering article by Anand Ranganathan on selective outrage of both left and right on the holier-than-thou, left-wing website Newslaundry.
It tells the conveniently forgotten story of Farook, a formerly Muslim man who was recently lynched in Coimbatore for turning atheist. The article concludes with the assertion that both left and right wing consist of hypocrites swimming in selective outrage.
In case you are surprised that this would get posted on Newslaundry, you need to understand that’s what left-wing websites do for “balance”; they keep one guy on the team who claims to hate both left and right equally.
Well, at least the “cow-nazis” they are talking about are actual criminals who have been accused of heinous crimes. But how do you explain a similar ratcheting up of the vocabulary used against ordinary Hindus, who can be accused at worst of overcrowding public spaces?
Terror? Whoa! Let alone grown ups, the increasing severity of language with respect to Hindus has not spared even innocent little children:
Even the kids are being bombarded with heavy words like “terror” and “harassment”. The Quint provided us with a helpful illustration to show that no child, no matter how young, innocent and cute, should be spared the sword of liberal bombast when caught participating in a Hindu festival. Fortunately on this issue, OpIndia took the initiative to explain the elite point of view to the right wing.
Meanwhile, the ratcheting up of language against every kind of Hindu (whether an innocent child or a murder accused) has been accompanied by a proportional toning down of language used with respect to groups that the liberals prefer to associate with.
Just a day before May 1, Firstpost, which probably sees itself as a completely mainstream website, published a reminiscence on “feisty Naxalite” Charu Mazumdar:
So who is this feisty Naxalite who was stalked and then subjected to cruel tortures by the Indian state until he died? If you are from Bengal, you have probably heard of this dreaded terrorist, but for others, Firstpost provides a helpful introduction.
Not a terrorist nor a Nazi. Not even a “vigilante”. Just an “ideologue”. An ideologue who espoused “targeted violence”. That doesn’t take away from the fact that he was so cool and “feisty”, does it?
It turns out that softening language towards certain groups in order to cover up crimes is a cool worldwide trend. In certain regions of Africa that correlate with a high population of believers in the one true faith, there was the horrific practice of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). Until now:
It’s now “genital cutting” instead of “Female Genital Mutilation”. The New York Times Health and Science Editor explains what is behind this hot new trend:
Don’t you dare use terms that are “culturally loaded”. Otherwise, it might offend people who are following the “rite” of Female Genital Mutilation. Yes, FGM can be a “rite”, unlike the Kanwariyas who are just undertaking a journey to spread terror. Or the kids spreading terror and harassment on Holi!
That’s the liberal playbook. Be it India or the US.
What the liberals don’t realize is that the people are on to them. In a world that is so closely connected, in a world of instant communication and in a world where the space for airing opinions has been so profoundly democratized. And yes, in a world that is full of inconvenient “trolls”. They can have all the discussions they want, either on Whatsapp or at chintan shivirs in the Swedish Embassy, but good old fashioned hypocrisy doesn’t stand a chance. Take my word for it.
Meanwhile, I have a suggestion for Indian liberals who are shaking with helpless anger against Gau-Rakshaks but just can’t seem to find the right word to express their rage.
Cow vigilantes, Cow terrorists, Cow Nazis…
Hmmm… still not enough, I guess. Not enough to convey the red hot anger boiling inside you.
Wait a minute! Did I say Red?
Why not try calling them “Cow-Commies” or “Cow-Comrades“?
You know, the Communists murdered at least 400 lakh people worldwide. I bet a term like Cow-Commies or Cow-Comrades can sufficiently express just how much you despise the enemies of liberty. Or is “Cow-Comrades” a term that is too “culturally loaded”? Let me know.
In a bizarre incident that has come to light in Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, a man named Amit Kumar, who is married to a Muslim woman, was abducted in order to pressurize him to convert to Islam. And while his abductors were at it, one Maulvi even proceeded to circumcise him against his will.
10 years back, Amit had married Shabnam who changed her name to Pooja after her marriage and both have two children aged 8 and 4. The family lives in a place called Madhavpuram. Their lives were peaceful until about 6 months back, when a man from Kharkhauda region named Maulana Riazuddin aka Bubbly and his associates started to threaten Amit to either convert to Islam or separate from his wife.
After Amit didn’t relent to these demands, he was kidnapped and held prisoner in a house in Madhavpuram earlier this year. There he was brutally beaten up and after his condition turned serious, he was thrown near a railway line. He was in hospital for around 2.5 months. The perpetrators thought that this could force Amit to reconsider his position.
When Amit didn’t agree to their demands even after this torture, he was reportedly kidnapped again, beaten up again, and was sedated with some drugs, following which he was circumcised. Now not only him, his family is also getting death threats, local media reports claim.
The incident is now attracting political intervention with Hindu Mahasabha meeting Meerut’s Inspector General Ajay Anand and demanding action in this case. The IG reportedly took a serious note of the matter and directed ASP Ravinder Gaur to launch an investigation. Directions were issued last week to file a report against Maulana Riazuddin aka Bubbly and for medical test of Amit.
Amit’s wife also confirms that the Maulana has been harassing them, asking her to dump her husband if he doesn’t convert to Islam. She says that her near and dear ones had no issue with her marriage but the Maulana is forcibly trying to meddle in their lives 10 years after their wedding.
Yesterday, The Hindu had published a report titled “Railway catering scam: 100gm curd for ₹972, refined oil for ₹1,241 a litre”. The story claimed that an RTI filed by an activist had revealed that the Central Railway had been buying food items under its catering department for highly inflated prices.
The story stated that after an activist named Ajay Bose filed multiple RTIs, he received some staggering information. The details of the same were summarized via the following infographic by The Hindu:
This, The Hindu claimed proved the existence of a scam. Unnamed sources were quoted to back up the same. This story was later curated by many websites such as IndiaToday, DNA, TheLogicalIndians and Dainik Jagran.
Today, the Railway Ministry took to social media to clear the air. They tweeted that the minister Suresh Prabhu had immediately ordered an enquiry and had asked that serious action be taken against anyone found guilty.
It was apparently found that the information provided in the RTI reply was erroneous. The ministry stated that 3 railway officials had been suspended & 1 officer was transferred with immediate effect for providing wrong information:
6/Rly Board has taken a very serious view of RTI wrong info,3 rly official hv been suspended & 1 officer is transferred w/ immediate effect https://t.co/cyZX9OSZM3
— Ministry of Railways (@RailMinIndia) May 2, 2017
Further, the Central Railway’s twitter account also put out the correct information. While the total purchase price was not disputed, the number of units purchased was specified now, which reduced the per unit price drastically:
This info is incorrect, Rs972 is for a carton of 108 cups of curd 100gm each ie 10.8kg each carton means 97.2 per kg, oil is 15 lit tin https://t.co/UKXintMMst
Correct info is Rs 970 for a carton hving 108 curd cups i.e. Rs 8.9/100gm & Rs1241 for 15 litre tin of refined oil i.e. Rs 82.7/litre https://t.co/IdqzL9Plpf
— Ministry of Railways (@RailMinIndia) May 2, 2017
In response to this, the journalist who had filed this report, Vedika Chaubey, put out a part of the RTI reply to back her claims. However since only a part of the RTI reply was tweeted out, all the relevant information was not available.
As can be seen above, in the case of curd, the quantity is mentioned in the 3rd column as 15336. It is not specified if this refers to individual units of curd cups or cartons of curd cups. However, some other items such as the one at sr no. 96 mentions 178 c/s which could indicate it to be cartons.
It appears that the information may have been incomplete/erroneous (for which action was taken) or misinterpreted by the RTI activist/journalist. While there might not be any “scam”, the casual and unprofessional approach of some railway officials while providing information surely has been exposed.
A massive racket has been unearthed. Call it Petrol pump chip scam. Several petrol pumps in Uttar Pradesh’s capital Lucknow were found guilty of tampering with fuel calibration by manipulating the fuel dispensing machines through remote-controlled electronic chips.
The electronic chip, which costs a paltry Rs 3,000, is designed to control the outflow of fuel. As a result the customers get 10 to 15 per cent less fuel on every litre purchased.
The scam has evoked strong reactions from the consumers.
These petrol pumps were making a fraud of Rs 14 lakh a month by duping the customers, a senior police officer of UP STF was quoted as saying in this report. There are 6,000 petrol stations across the state. The scam could run into a whopping Rs 100 crore.
The Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force (STF) has raided on 11 petrol pumps. Of these, nine were found stealing 50 ml of fuel in every litre dispensed to customers. While six belong to Bharat Petroleum, three are IndianOil petrol pumps.
More interestingly, according to reports, during the raids in the past few days, the UP STF has come across dozens of “abandoned” pumps. Even the STF team found evidence of chips removed in a hurry before the raid.
So far seven petrol pumps have been sealed and 23 persons have been arrested in connection to the fraud.
The scam came to the light following the arrest of an electric technician who confessed to installing the “cheat chip” at hundreds of petrol pumps across Uttar Pradesh and beyond.
Uttar Pradesh director general of police Sulkhan Singh has constituted a special investigation team (SIT) to probe the multi-crore scam. Singh also issued an advisory to all district magistrates and superintendents of police across the state, asking them to form teams to conduct raids on petrol pumps across the state.
The genesis of the petrol pump fraud goes back to the days of the previous Samajwadi Party government led by Akhilesh Yadav. Reports suggest that the scam could extend beyond UP. Uttar Pradesh STF suspects that the mastermind of the racket is a New Delhi-based gang.
The Centre has immediately swung into action. Oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan has ordered inspection of all petrol pumps in Uttar Pradesh and random checks elsewhere to detect the short delivery of fuel.
Emphasising that “consumer interest” is the paramount of the Modi government, Pradhan has promised strict action against those found guilty.
“We have initiated action against respective field officers. The strictest possible action will be taken against guilty petrol pumps, including termination of licence,” the Oil Minister told reporters in New Delhi.
On Monday the nation was shocked and outraged after the Northern Command of the Indian Army announced in a press release that the Pakistani army had violated the ceasefire along the Line Of Control in Krishna Ghati sector in Jammu & Kashmir by carrying out unprovoked rocket and mortar firing.
The Pakistani army then committed another heinous act by mutilating the dead body of 2 martyred Indian soldiers.
This dastardly act of the Pakistani army now has appeared to draw an appropriate response from our Army after it was reported that the retaliation had ensured the destruction of two Pakistani bunkers resulting in the death of 7 Pakistani soldiers.
Such instances of retaliation by the Indian Army is not new and time and again our forces have given a befitting reply to any aggression committed by the Pakistani forces.
Here are a few instances:
In November last year, one Indian soldier was beheaded and two others were killed by Pakistani commandos who crossed the Line of Control at Machil. It was reported that within hours of the above incident, the army launched an aggressive counter offensive on Pakistan. This resulted in the Pakistanis announcing the death of three of their soldiers including a Captain, the very next day.
In October 2016, the Pakistani troops had again violated the ceasefire agreement and under the fire cover mutilated an Indian soldier. As a retaliation to the incident the Indian army reportedly destroyed four Pakistani outposts in Keran sector resulting in the death of about 23 Pakistani soldiers.
On 18th September 2016 four Pakistan backed terrorists attacked the Brigade headquarters of Indian army in Uri which resulted in the death of 19 Indian soldiers. It was dubbed as the deadliest attack on our Armed forces in over two decades. This attack resulted in an extraordinary response by our Armed forces who undertook the famous Surgical strike. In the surgical strike, a team of Indian commandos after getting the go-ahead from the government entered Pakistani occupied Kashmir and destroyed 7 terror cams resulting in the deaths of at-least 50 terrorists and 2 Pakistani army personnel.
From 1st October 2014 the Pakistani troops started their ceasefire violation which also took a toll on Indian civilians. The almost week long attack resulted in the death of 6 Indian nationals including civilians and troops. This elicited a massive response from the Indian army. The army targeted 37 Pakistani border posts all along the 200-kilometre long International Border (IB) in Jammu which resulted in deaths of 15 Pakistanis and a serious damage to outposts manned by Pakistani Rangers.
UPDATE: Army has denied the the news reports from Monday that they had retaliated and killed 7 Pakistani soldiers. However, the army said that they will strike back when it is appropriate time.
As a persecuted member of a minority community (Kashmiri Hindu) that is not even considered a minority and consequently, has never been taken cognisance of, by the chest-beating, human rights citing Liberals, when I see the state of MSM i.e. ‘media-sanctioned minorities’ in India, I wonder what are people even talking about!
Media sanctioned minorities are the ones that are considered as Minorities by the Mainstream Media, ignoring numerical reality. Am not kidding. How many times have you found Sikhs, Parsis or Jains finding any place of reckoning in their discourse?
Going by the perception created by the Media, only those people who belong to the religions marketed and propagated using the twin themes of love and peace, are the minorities in India.
Having lived in and traveled to places across India, it surprises me no end to witness the outcry of ‘intolerance’ and ‘minorities under siege’. Who is showing intolerance, to whom and how, pray tell me?
Don’t people from the ‘media-sanctioned minorities’ have the liberty to profess their faith at home and in their respective places of worship? Has anyone been ever stopped from praying in a manner of their choosing? Has anyone been asked to avoid wearing visible signs of their faith in public including workplace? No!
But! Wait.
Indian secularism doesn’t celebrate diversity of faiths, it celebrates victimhood of some particular faiths.
We have heard numerous complaints about loudspeakers during Hindu festivals, but one complaint against azaan, and all hell broke loose. We have instances of students being beaten/chastised for sporting a ‘tilak’ to school, but question ‘hijab’ at school and secularism is threatened.
People who believe in many Gods, who believe in all paths leading to the same destination and who believe in the whole world being one family are branded intolerant in the surreal ‘MSM meets MSM’ world, while those believing in “there is no God except…” become loving and peaceful.
People whose population share has been dwindling on account of foreign-funded proselytising piranhas are taken to task even if a handful of people do “Ghar Wapsi” while those who have declared a mission to convert everyone are celebrated as part of the diversity and acceptance.
The ‘cabbies and maids’ source based MSM would never know how it feels to be unable to pray where you grew up praying. To find that the Shiva Linga you bowed to as a child, was desecrated and submerged in the river on whose bank the temple stood. To be marked as a target for a Bindi or a Dejhor or a Janeyu. To be told that you had to convert, die or flee – all because of your faith!
Thus, it amuses me no end when the self-attested eminences preach Secularism to us from their pulpits. As a Hindu, I’d say that our Constitution mandates that the State be secular. As a Hindu, our Conscience mandates that our society be pluralistic.
Have the wilfully ignorant self-attested intellectuals ever pondered over the following?
Which faith(s) divide(s) people into believers and non-believers?
Which faith has offers and inducements similar to customer acquisition?
Which faith(s) aspire(s) to spread far and wide through means overt and covert?
Which religions came uninvited, used violence as a means, to turn non-believers into believers instead of focusing on inclusivity and pluralism?
Which faith creates low entry barriers and high exit barriers?
Which faiths seem to act more like Conglomerates with targets of customer acquisition and market expansion?
The answers are self-evident.
But which is the faith that gets to hear the maximum sermons about protecting secularism (a manifesto was also written) and professing tolerance? That answer is also self-evident.
As a proud Hindu, I look at all Indians as my family. It includes those believing in faiths of Indic origin and those following non-Indic faiths. I respect those whose ancestors have had to embrace the latter due to persuasion, persecution or proselytisation. They are my own and it pains me when I see perpetual victimhood being forced upon them by some self-attested eminences!
Painting regular crimes as minority persecution and covering up genuine religious persecution as disgruntlement benefits none. And unless we are aware of what ails us and accept it, how will we cure ourselves?
How can we ignore Hindus from Kashmir, Kairana, Kerala, Dhulagarh and many other places? Instead of acknowledging the problem, we are busy denying it.
These days everyone is talking about “gau rakshaks”. They are being compared with terrorists. But remember what these commentators did when a gau-rakshak was killed by cattle smugglers? They brought “political context” in the murder and tried to downplay it. As if there is no social or political context to the cow vigilantism incidents. There can’t be a more brazen and insensitive example of how some particular lives don’t matter for the flag-bearers of Indian secularism.
Despite such behaviour, Hindus in general have not complained. Perhaps, it is in this regard that we act like a typical Indian (Sanatani) family where the eldest child is expected to be virtues-incarnate while the younger siblings get away with anything! Mother India has been Nirupa Roy, for far too long, and the eldest child has been relentlessly upholding family values.
But in the 21st century of ‘isms’ galore, equality and oneness have to be The Truism.
‘Give a dog a bad name and hang him’ strategy of the past is passe! So let us stop ostriching our way out of duties.
All that ALL of us need to do is to learn and practice civility and civic duty so that tolerance and mutual-respect are a way of life for EVERYONE in India and not just Hindus.
We are Indians. We are one family. A family or a household functions smoothly only when when all chip in with their duties without fear or favour.
Let us, therefore, learn to live and let live in unity while celebrating our glorious diversity.
The mainstream media and so-called liberals have been mocking, sexualizing and abusing “right wing” women since around 2012 for being supporters of Narendra Modi. They have called Smriti Irani and Meenakshi Lekhi Modi’s cheergirls, ran petty polls deriding prominent right-wing women social media supporters, coined the term “hate hags”, which even the Congress spokeswoman was happy to endorse.
And after heaping all scorn, bile, and abuse, the same lot then goes on to talk about “trolls”.
For some reason, the women on the right-wing don’t play victim despite victimized very systematically. These brave women have stood up to these cheap tactics. They have on occasions even spoken up against the abuse, but largely they have believed in carrying on with their life and work while these real trolls surround them and try to scare them away.
Recently Hindustan Times started a “campaign” against trolls where they gave no platform to any right-wing woman to share their experience. If this was not enough, an enlightened journalist named Manu Joseph went ahead and wrote an article about right-wing women, where he poured all his sexual frustrations to demean and denigrate the same women who had put some trust in him and had decided to share their experiences. I hope Joseph is feeling manly now after releasing all his frustrations.
If you think I’m being unfair to Joseph, you have to look at his track record in writing about women. Many readers may be unaware of Anand Jon, a fashion designer who made it big in New York fashion industry. He has been sentenced to 59 years of imprisonment by the US courts for sexual abuse. Joseph wrote an article about Jon. Read what he writes:
There were many stories about him and he was linked to several girls. His world seemed to be very large then. A world filled with women. A world also called “the field”. As his male classmates now say, frequently, “He played the whole field.” Many years later some of those girls from the field would appear on Facebook, their faces somewhat bloated, mothers now, their husbands still in the dark about the times when Anand John touched them indecently.
There is no connection between Anand Jon being sentenced for a sexual crime versus the current looks of Jon’s female classmates. But Joseph feels the need to pull down these women and if no logical argument is available then by deriding looks of women with passage of time and life.
Not just Jon, the enlightened Manu Joseph had written an article about the erudite Tarun Tejpal, who was accused of rape by his junior colleague at Tehelka. The article was cleverly written to hint that the woman was lying and Tejpal could be innocent.
In retrospect, appears that Manu Joseph has some amount of ingrained misogyny that the women who agreed to talk to him couldn’t anticipate. And he extracted his “manly revenge” from them.
In his article on ‘women in the right-wing’, Joseph goes on to declare that “Most of the women drawn to the right started their adult lives with no strong political views but a crush on Narendra Modi and bitter personal experiences with some liberals seem to have tipped them.”
There is no context for the conclusion drawn that right-wing women have no strong political views. He presumes women can be only sexual beings with no intellect to develop logical arguments and opinions on law, financial policy, or any other governance issues. In the article, Joseph maligns and tries hard to show right-wing women as mumbling idiots with heightened sexual feelings for the Prime Minister.
One of those whom Joseph interviewed was Amrita Bhinder. I have briefly known Amrita in the last 2.5 years through Twitter. We both follow each other but have never met or had private communications with each other. I thought this would be a wonderful opportunity to get a real interview that she was denied by Joseph.
The interview follows:
Amrita Bhinder
Q1. Do you regret having met Manu Joseph and agreeing to talk to him after the kind of article he has come up with?
Ans: I don’t regret talking to Manu. In fact, the way the article has turned out, it exposes the author’s mindset more than harming his subject’s image.
Q2. But this was betrayal I would argue. Will you be comfortable if someone from the mainstream media talks to you again?
Ans: You are right, but I will still talk to those calling themselves liberals if another of those approach me. I believe no space should be given up just for the fear of being misrepresented even when it’s a certainty. Every article cuts both ways. The subject as well as the author are at risk, and it is quite dependent on the readers understanding. And today readers are not that easy misled.
Q3. Coming to the content that was not coloured by Manu’s opinions, you had talked about your professional success and your triumph over medical issues. Can you tell us about your journey and evolution as a right-wing woman?
Ans: My journey into being a ‘right wing’ woman has a lot to do with the Prime Minister Modi, ever since he was the Chief Minister of Gujarat. I am a firm believer that he is not personally culpable for the 2002 riots. It is a propaganda fed by the mainstream media to keep away a contender by inflicting fear and paranoia in folks. Under his watch, frequency of communal riots drastically dropped in Gujarat and law & order situation became better. His track record of development was also impressive and those made me his supporter.
At this point, I want to add that the tag of “Right Wing” is misnomer for me, because I’m a socialist and not a religious zealot. This categorization by media into Left & Right is a travesty. Those who claim they are left & liberal stand at odds with the definition of the term. The left-liberals in fact are the ‘elite’ in India and they are the high priests of the state.
But if being against them and being a supporter of Narendra Modi makes me a right-wing, be it.
Q4: Would you say you support right-wing because of Narendra Modi only? Is your support person specific or party specific or ideology specific?
Ans: My support obviously is for the Prime Minister. However, I also believe that BJP has always put the Armed Forces and the nation first, which other parties have not always done. So yes, even ideologically I’m inclined towards BJP, especially under Narendra Modi who gave a call for “India First”.
Q5. Were you a politically aware person since young age or it has been a recent development?
Ans: As I was growing up, my family did not discuss politics at home, for I come from an army background and normally we were kept away from the political space in discussion or on the dining table. But that’s not to say that one did not understand the role the then government played post 1971 war in downgrading the pay bands of the army in comparison to the civil services. To me, it seemed like a humiliating thing to do the nation’s forces that had just won a bloody war. And I started getting interested in politics as a result.
Q6. Are there any laws or governance aspects of the current government that you disagree with? Have you been vocal in your opposition to it? As a legal professional are there any suggestions on policy which BJP led government can easily adopt to bring major changes to governance and society?
Ans: On the fiscal front, I have some issues with the budget. To my mind, the exemption limit should’ve been raised to 5 lakhs, instead of bringing down the rate to 5% for 2.5 to 5 lakhs bracket. Post demonetization, many have come into the banking system and anything above 2.5 Lakhs would even cover even low paying blue-collar jobs or manual labor earning 30,000 a month in the cities. It is not worth the effort of tracking and compliance both for the government and people earning below 5 lakhs a year.
On the internal security front, the present government needs to empower the forces with modern equipment, decision making powers, and autonomy to strongly take on stone pelters, Jihadis, separatists, Naxals, Maoist et al. The government should show some political will on the internal security front.
Another issue that requires redressal is the ISI propaganda in India’s mainstream media. Indian Govt needs to take steps to fight propaganda shrewdly so as not let the narrative be led/defined by Pakistan. We must move away from reactionary problem solving. Move towards proactive counter psyops. So that Indian’s learn to think independently. Right now, Pakistan is winning on the propaganda front.
I have been very vocal about my opposition to some of the stands the government has taken, be it the delay in OROP or on the budgets proposals and all the rising casualty figures of our armed and security forces.
Q7. Have you faced flak from friends and family for being a vocal right wing woman supporter?
Ans: Yes, I have faced a lot of flak for being a supporter of the Prime Minister. A lot of my friends, many of whom believe that they are ‘liberal’ and open to other people’s views, have accused me of being radical just because of my support for Narendra Modi. The last thing I am is a radical or a religious person. In fact, I believe that religion is a private matter and cannot be a focus area for the nation’s policy. Economics, security, health should be vital areas for focus, not religion. That is why I am very surprised when I find liberals not speak about the social schemes available to the poor from Jan Dhan to the Social Security schemes, life insurances & low cost housing, electricity for all, LPG, and some such totally ignored for keeping the talks around only religion.
Q8. Do you feel women choose to support right-wing for reasons that are very different from a man’s perspective? Are there any particular issues that are more important to women than men?
Ans: I have a very general gender neutral take on supporting the Prime Minister or BJP. I think people of all classes, religion and gender support him for the hope and governance he has brought into India. Though on the issues such as triple talaq and bringing in Uniform Civil Code, there could be gender related support, but even there I see no reason why men shouldn’t support.
Endnote:
There are many right-wing women including yours truly, whose support for the Prime Minister and by that virtue the party, comes from a strong ideological pinning of Indic culture and values. Women from various parts of the country like @Unsubtledesi (Nupur), @Kuvalayamala (Anjali Geroge), Dimple Kaul and countless others are giving a large part of their free time to various Indic movements through their writings and activism work. These women have no personal stakes or expectations from the government. To continuously deride such women reflects very poorly on the media and “Liberals”.
An RSS office in Perunthattil village falling under Kannur district in Kerala was reportedly vandalized by 10 goons on Monday morning. The goons smashed the windows, destroyed the equipment in the premises and also threatened women and children who were present inside.
Incidentally this vandalism comes only a day after the office was inaugurated. Following this attack, both the RSS and the BJP have placed the blame on CPM activists.
This has prompted Rajiv Tuli the Prant Prachar Pramukh of Delhi to issue a press release which put forth the RSS’s side to the whole incident.
The release claimed that in Perunthattil where the office or Keshav Smriti Sevalay is located is a CPM stronghold where no other organisations are allowed to undertake any political-cultural activity.
The office was inaugurated on Sunday
The Sevalay consisted of a help-desk, employment cell, library among others. The release also claimed that it was attacked a whopping 18 times since its foundation stone was laid. The attacks included removing the foundation stone, filling the excavated are and demolition of walls. The construction was finally completed by the Swayamsevaks with the help of local villagers who risked their lives.
The release further claimed that a day before the inauguration a prominent RSS member was surrounded by armed CPM workers and barely managed to save himself.
The release also claimed that posters were put out in the village which read “Welcome to CPM party village/This is an RSS-free zone/Here RSS is banned”. It also reiterated that violence especially in Kannur district has hugely intensified after the CPM-led LDF government came to power in 2016.
Here are a few images of the vandalized office as reported here[1][2]:
This above case might just be another instance of RSS establishments getting targeted by alleged CPM goons. We had previously reported an interview of an RSS leader wherein he had elaborated how the lives of RSS workers were at a risk in Kerala. Incidentally this plight of the RSS members has gone largely unheard by both the media and the BJP government at the center.
Sangathan (organisation), Sangharsh (fight for the cause) and Samrachana (cohesiveness) – these are the three directional principles of the cadre-based Bharatiya Janata Party. Amit Shah, the master strategist, knows all too well how to carry them forward. His astute poll management has yielded results for the BJP in successive elections.
Presently the party rules 16 of 29 states, covering 70 per cent of India’s geographical area and 60 per cent of the population. But like Robert Frost’s poem, Amit Shah wants the BJP miles to go. That is precisely the reason, during his presidential address in the recently concluded National Executive Meet in Bhubaneswar, Shah had declared that the golden age of the BJP would dawn when the party would occupy every level of legislature – from Panchayat to Parliament.
Leading from the front, the BJP president is currently on a marathon 110-day-long whirlwind tour across the nation. The tour coincides with the Modi government’s celebration of three years in office. Shah’s voyage, which started on 25 April, will end on 25 September, the 101st birth anniversary of party ideologue Deen Dayal Upadhyay.
Amit Shah’s tour across the nation will focus on taking stock of the party’s organisational strength, further expansion of ideology and electoral appeal.
So far, the BJP president has covered two states – West Bengal and Jammu & Kashmir. In West Bengal, Shah has given the clarion call to party workers for Ebar Bangla(Now Bengal) to “liberate” the state from Mamata Banerjee’s misrule and recreate a Sonar Bangla (Golden Bengal). At Jammu, Amit Shah has urged the party workers to spread and strengthen the spirit of nationalism in Kashmir.
Mission 2019
The BJP president has already prepared a blue print for the party’s big win in the 2019 general elections. Amit Shah wants the victory should be bigger than that of the 2014. In the 2014 general elections, the BJP won 282 of the 543 Lok Sabha seats on its own. This time, Shah has set a target of winning 400+ seats. Apart from retaining every Lok Sabha seat the party won in 2014, the BJP president has identified 120 winnable seats where the party had lost in the last Lok Sabha elections. During the course of his nation-wide tour, Shah himself is seeking special feedback on these 120 Lok Sabha constituencies.
The Master Plan
For the purpose of election strategy, Amit Shah has earmarked all the 29 states and seven union territories into three categories – A, B and C – in accordance with their electoral significance. The BJP president is spending three days in category-A states, two days in category-B states and one day in category-C states. The category-C states are those being ruled by the BJP. The category-A states are those where the party had failed to win in 2014 Lok Sabha elections despite a groundswell of Modi wave and now, Shah senses the potential for a turnaround in 2019. There are four states in special focus in BJP’s scheme of things – West Bengal, Odisha, Telangana and Kerala. These four states contribute a total of 102 Lok Sabha seats.
In West Bengal, there are a galaxy of issues – Saradha chit fund scam, Narada sting, communal appeasement and anti-Hindu politics – plaguing the state. The BJP is going to use them as its trump card to checkmate Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress in 2019. In Odisha, Naveen Patnaik is staring at a strong anti-incumbency. In the last Pachayat elections, the BJP succeeded in making a giant stride in Odisha politics, leaving Patnaik’s BJD in a tailspin. With renewed hope and new vigour, the BJP is sanguine about riding a saffron surge in the land of Shree Jagannath. Similarly, the party wants to paint the Red bastion Kerala – where party workers and RSS swayamsevaks are repeatedly being targeted by the ruling CPM cadre – in saffron. In Telangana, the BJP is getting ready to contest the 2019 elections on its own.
Micro Management
The brief from Amit Shah to party’s organisation is clear: The preparation for 2019 elections has to be micromanaged. During the course of the ‘intensive outreach campaign’, the party will take the success story of Narendra Modi government to the people.
For the booth-level strengthening exercise in the run up to the 2019 elections, the BJP has already roped in around 3.52 lakh volunteers who would work full-time for the party for anywhere between 15 days and a year. Moreover, the party is also reaching out to its 11 crore primary members enrolled during the massive membership drive in 2015-16 and will involve them in booth-level activities.
Further, the party has enrolled another 600 full-timers. Of these 600 full timers, 543 will be assigned one Lok Sabha seat and are tasked to supervise strengthening of the party and creating a winnable environment in 2019 elections. The remaining 57 will be tasked with overall electoral responsibility of a cluster of five constituencies each where the party has traditionally been week.
It was today revealed by the Northern Command, Indian Army, that in a cowardly act, the Pakistan Army had mutilated the dead body of 2 martyred Indian soldiers. The incident was said to take place today, i.e. on 1st May 2017, in the Krishna Ghati sector. News of this dastardly act was broken on social media by the Northern Command, Indian Army’s official twitter account.
A short press release was tweeted out by the army elaborating the sequence of events:
As specified in the release, Paksitan is said to have carried out unprovoked rocket and mortar firing on Indian posts. This happened along the line of control in the Krishna Ghati sector. The release further stated that, simultaneously, a BAT action was launched on a patrol operating between the two posts.
This is not the first time Pakistan had resorted to such unsoldierly conduct. In November last year, an Indian soldier was beheaded in Kashmir and two others killed by Pakistani commandos who crossed the Line of Control at Machil. Just three weeks before that, Sepoy Mandeep Singh was beheaded not far from the spot.
Back then too, the Indian army had promised “heavy retribution” for this event. It was reported that within hours of the above incident, the army launched an aggressive counter offensive on Pakistan. Brigadier, Northern Command, S Gotra had said tha India Army launched a counter offensive along the LoC. Indian Army posts are responding strongly and giving a befitting reply, Defence PRO Manish Mehta said.
On the very next day, news broke out that Pakistan had admitted that it lost three Army personnel, including a Captain after the Indian Army launched a fire assault against Pakistani posts at different points along the LoC. Some similar action can be expected this time too by the army, especially since they have promised an ‘appropriate response’.
