Defeated can’t lord it over – The Economic Times

In what holds ominous signs for rejected members of Vajpayee’s ministerial team, particularly Murli Manohar Joshi and Yashwant Sinha, the BJP leadership is veering round the view that defeated leaders should not be rewarded immediately with Rajya Sabha nominations.

I didn’t like it when the BJP lost (for reasons that must be clear by now), but some good seems to be coming out of it, viz. they did badly in Gujarat, the Tam Bram RSS lobby were made to look like fools in TamilNadu* and Moron Joshi is being purged!

*Look no offence meant to Tam Brams, but the most hardcore and the most sanctimonious lot among the RSS now seem to be coming from among them. Given that they have made no inroads at all in their home state, they have no business blabbering about how the BJP lost because it abandoned its core principles.

What started me off on this goose-hunt about India invading other countries? (The answer I was looking for was Ranjit Singh’s general Zorawar Singh’s invasion of Tibet. Sandeep got the answer correctly.)

Believe it or not, this was occasioned by me thinking about the question of who will lead the BJP after Vajpayee/Advani. Let me explain.

It is an article of faith among us Indians that disunity is the Indian disease. We were attacked and conquered time and again because our kings squabbled among themselves and failed to put up a united front when invaders attacked us.
But it occurs to me that this belief is not only mistaken, it is also counterproductive.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not claiming that we weren’t disunited, but that we were no more disunited than the others. Also I am claiming that our disunity was not a source of our weakness, instead when we were weak, we were disunited.

I’ll explain.
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Long long back I had asked a really badly phrased question on whether India has ever invaded another country. It was really badly phrased because all the words in the question, i.e. “India”, “invaded”, “another” and “country” are ambiguous, as many of you correctly pointed out. Actually, the problem was that I had a specific answer in mind, so I framed the question in a way I thought would leave only the answer I wanted, but it turns out that it didn’t.

Yup Sikkim is a good answer (congrats Yazad and CCG). If I know history correctly, Indira Gandhi’s invasion of Sikkim was completely unprovoked. She was playing some kind of geopolitical game with China and Sikkim got caught in the process. Other answers are at least debatable. Remember that I was giving the maximum amount of leeway to a supporter of Akhand Bharat, so I wouldn’t consider our Bangladesh adventure to be a good answer (not because it was not an invasion, but because a believer in Akhand Bharat would consider it an internecine battle. Chola kings’ incursions into Sri Lanka was already mentioned in the article I linked to – I had asked for other examples. Our actions in modern day Sri Lanka and Maldives cannot really be considered invasions can they? We had gone there at the invitation of recognised governments of those countries.

Look I don’t want to argue on this okay? I know that there are ten sides to this issue and you can corner me by asking me to define all my terms. For example, I wouldn’t consider an attack on Nepal an “invasion” because Nepal is kind of culturally part of India (The only reason it isn’t politically a part of India is that the British left it a semi-independent monarchy rather than make it a dependency.) But I know that I have made a hash of my argument, so I won’t press it further.

Rather, I will ask you to guess which incident I am thinking of by narrowing it thus:
1) It took place in the 19th century.
2) The place invaded is outside undivided India.
3) The place has never been ruled by the British.

What am I talking of?
If you want a lateral hint, it is:
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Whatever your views on Kaizad Gustad’s arrest, can we all agree that by stopping his film in its tracks, providence has done us all an unexpected favour?

This deserves to be linked!

Cynics see the Common Minimum Program of the coalition government as the usual bunch of political promises: motherhood, apple pie, sugar and spice for all credulous suckers. The government itself calls the CMP reform with a human face. But what about the cost? Face-lifts are expensive, and may not improve your looks much. The CMP proposes to increase education spending by 2% of GDP, and health spending by another 1-2% of GDP. It promises a National Employment Guarantee, debt relief to the states, and doubled agricultural lending, each of which could soak up another 1% of GDP. Each 1% of GDP is Rs 25,000 crore, so the bill adds up alarmingly fast.

How will it be paid? The CMP has no explanation, only a bland declaration that the governments revenue deficit will magically disappear by 2009. But much of the proposed new spending (on education, health, employment) is revenue expenditure. How then will the revenue deficit disappear? Through additional revenue maybe?

Read The Whole Thing

Truly, an extraordinary fellow(via The Opti-Mystic

Makes sense

I have a confession to make. I have committed a serious transgression, one that if it goes unpunished will earn me expulsion from the Cartel and the undying hatred of all right-thinking and decent bloggers.

I am finding it extremely difficult to type out this post. Even as I type this, a voice within me says, “Don’t! No one will ever know! It’s all right!”

But I will know and unless I own up, I shall never be able to sleep again.

I bought a copy of the One Novel That Cannot be Named, written by The Verbal Terrorist.

No! Don’t look at me like that! I did not even buy a legal copy. What do you take me for? A Mallu? I bought a pirated copy and that too second hand. I didn’t hand her any of my money! I was just strolling along Matunga casually looking at the many roadside bookstalls, thinking “What could be worse than reading an essay by the Verbal Terrorist?” The answer was, “An entire book by the Verbal Terorist” And there I saw The One Novel That Cannot be Named and I don’t know what possessed me and… Hey I also bargained! If she ever writes another novel, it will not be because she got secondary encouragement from my purchase! Why are you staring at me? Look I’d throw it into the fire, but I thought I’d need to be able to have an answer the next time someone says “Her views are crap, but she writes really really well.” So probably I’ll read the thing.

Anyway, I plan to read the book reaally slowly, one page at a time, so that there is less chance that I lose my sanity in one shot, and so that I’ll be able to give you guys a fair warning if it happens.

How could I have committed the elementary fallacy of the slippery slope? That’s simple. I committed no such fallacy. An example of the slippery slope fallacy is this: “You start punishing people for murder today and the next thing you know, people will get hanged for killing animals.” Now that is a fallacy because you are refusing to make a sound decision today for fear of making a sound distinction tomorrow. (In this case, the elementary distinction between humans and animals)

I did not claim that there is no difference at all between citizens and non-citizens. I just wanted to know what the difference was, so that I could use it in my argument, in ways you are probably not anticipating.

Yazad is right that the reason we let only citizens stand for political posts in our country is to avoid conflicts of interest. But let’s be clear on what the conflict of interest amounts to. If the fear were just that a person could hold political office in two countries simultaneously, then we could pass a law prohibiting that specific action. Of course a person could be Defence Minister of India for a period and then move to Pakistan after demiting his post. But that could happen even now.
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I deserve an award for getting a Gmail account in the most shameless way possible.

In my defence, all I can say to my friend is,

My need was greater than yours.

P.S. If I make it my life’s ambition to hunt down and kill the person who went and acquired ravikiran @ gmail.com before me, would I be overreacting?

I am busy at work, so I will just post a bunch of links.
From Swami there is this about bringing of marriages under the Essential Commodities Act in Jammu and Kashmir.

“The ECA of 1955, which was notified in September 1973, has been re-invoked in view of the huge wastage of food involved in marriage feasts across the state,” Minister for Public Distribution and Consumer Affairs Taj Mohiuddin told reporters.

The order stipulates that not more than 45 kg each of rice and meat must be consumed at a wedding. The bride’s side must not invite more than 75 guests, including 25 baratees. The groom can invite 50 guests, Mohiuddin said.

Swami got married only recently, so he probably doesn’t know that at one time this was the case all over India. There used to be a limit on the number of guests you could invite. And this is for those who think that it is not the system that makes people corrupt, but the people that corrupt the system. If you were a government employee whose unpleasant job is to barge into Marriage Mandaps and arrest people for overspending, how long do you think you are going to remain honest?

Yes Ramnath, I’ve read this advice from Swaminathan Aiyar to his brother Mani Shankar Aiyar. I will be bold enough to confess that I read it in the paper today morning (The kind of paper that you hold in your hands, I mean) . That’s good advice, but look at it this way. May be he was trying to make up for calling his brother a dog last sunday.

I am referring of course, to this passage.

Now, I have been a stern critic of the Gandhi family most of my life. I am not happy that the great party which won us independence has become one where Congressmen sit up and beg every time a member of the Gandhi family whistles. But my opposition to sectarian politics vastly outweighs my opposition to dynastic politics.

I have heard rumours to the effect that petrol and diesel prices will finally go up by the end of this month. I at The Examined Life would thank all my tax-paying Indian readers for subsidising my diesel for the past few months.