This is Modi's election. And in that, this election is a battle for Indians to wrestle back their identities that have been assaulted and demonized. In order to facilitate colonial structures that perpetuate slavery. This Indian election is an exercise in freedom.
The Case against Patanjali by Indian Medical Association and the tone of Judiciary is alarming. We need to look into its historical and global context to fully grasp its ramification.
Why do seemingly normal people commit atrocities and genocides? More importantly, why do millions other go along with these crimes as participants? We explore the Perpetration-Induced Trauma and its impact on the societies.
“Hatred is always self hatred, and there is something suicidal about it.” ― James Baldwin
Be careful whom you hate. In fact, be careful from hate itself. It has a quality of harming the one who harbors it more that against whom it is directed.
When the ones who hate and target others to exact revenge for being slighted or to prove their whim, often lose their way. The problem with hatred out of slight and humiliation is that its context is personal. I may feel strongly about the slight that is dealt to me, but others wouldn’t. The intensity that I feel for the fight will not be universal. Just as Bhishma, Drona, and Vidur were fighting for Duryodhana, but their hearts and atamik alignment was not with Duryodhan. They knew the fight was wrong, even when their participation was necessitated by their sense of duty to the crown.
Mahabharat was lost by Duryodhan even before it began.
Those who can never be the leaders should learn to live with their fate. The more they force their way, through crime or deception, lose everything they have. Everything.
Senior Advocate Harish Salve spiritedly argued the case in the Supreme Court.
Citing that jail cannot be the rule, the senior advocate stressed, “Let us assume there is an FIR which is three years old why will you arrest him and then put him in Taloja with hardened criminals. Is Goswami a terrorist, is there a murder charge on him? This cannot be assumed to be yet another criminal case. Will heavens fall if this man is released. Jail is an exception, not a rule."
Jail is an exception, Bail is the rule, is precisely what we argued two days back (please read Issue # 177 for the context around this assertion!).
A vacation bench of justices D.Y. Chandrachud and Indira Banerjee gave the order in the petition by Arnab Goswami’s team challenging the November 9th, Bombay High Court order declining interim bail in the Anvay Naik-Kumud Naik suicide
The Supreme Court spoke clearly on what it felt about the false case that the Maharashtra Government/ Mumbai Police had used to arrest Arnab.
The other accused - Feroze Shaikh and Neetish Sarda - also got the bail.
Salve raised the specter of basic flaw in the whole process, where the Maharashtra Home Minister had asked the Mumbai Police to reopen the case.
“The A Summary Report (Closure) needs to be first set aside in a judicial forum. SC judgments say Magistrate's power cannot be taken away to re-order a probe or set aside an A Summary report (Closure report). Truth has a nasty habit of sneaking out. They say that since police has been directed to re-investigate they are doing so. It is a dangerous precedent to say that after a magistrate has accepted an A Summary, the Executive can order a re-investigation.”
Quite simply, the Home Minister did NOT have the powers to reopen a case that had been closed by Supreme Court.
Here are some of the main assertions that the Justices made in their order. (Source)
In the last sentence the honorable Supreme Court ostensibly exposes the incompetence of the honorable Mumbai High Court! In the entire 50+ page order, they did not deal with the main issue. So, what were the honorable judges really discussing? Matters which were not even “ingredients of the offence.”
Such a rebuke by Supreme Court of a High Court must be unprecedented. (I don’t have such example, if you have - please do share in the comments)
And, this tone from the highest court in the land - further reiterates the questions we raised in our newsletter’s Issue # 177 - about the inconsistency of application of rules and laws.
Supreme Court has discussed this twice in its orders already and it has become a malaise that needs to be addressed to restore the trust that the Indian judiciary has lost amongst the Indian people. The population these court sit in judgment on.
Respect and trust is gained. You may try to create fear by using contempt of court as a weapon to push people to back down. But fear and respect are in two separate realms. And, in a sane democratic society, ‘never the twain shall meet’.
The end result - Arnab Goswami is free.
Does the picture below describe Uddhav Thackeray and his political future appropriately?
For last few years, the only real political strength that Shiv Sena had was as a side-kick to BJP. Realistically speaking, that is the best they could do. Balasaheb was not into electoral politics but his next generation, without an iota of his charisma and strength wanted to cash in on the golden goose that he was.
So, they thought that they could abandon BJP, leave them out to dry and create a power center within Maharashtra using the tactics that Balasaheb used to fight the menace of Dawood and men. These tactics worked in that fight.
Electoral world is a different ball game. It is a test series of many decades. You cannot hit your way out of it.
They wanted to shut every mouth that criticized them. Even a journalist. Like Arnab.
They used their power over the police and their ‘ways’ in Mumbai High Court, in a way that Supreme Court found it important to publicly show its displeasure at its working.
Arnab came out and headed to the media rooms of Republic. And, his defiant speech gave everyone - there and outside, India and across the world - goosebumps.
This was a battle between David and Goliath. And, David not just defeated the giant but came out to dare him into further embarrassing his sorry self to extinction. Listen to it.
Uddhav Thackeray thought that autogolpe was a foolproof way to legitimize his tantrums in a democracy. It wasn’t.
Autogolpe is a coup d'état where the leader of a state silences dissent and renders the legislature and state’s institutions powerless, despite having come through legal (though questionable) means. This person assumes extraordinary powers which will never be granted under normal circumstances!
The term came into vogue when incumbent President Alberto Fujimori seized more power in Peru in 1992. Though the effort was supported by Peru’s military, the work was done by Fujimori himself, who suspended elections. Since then, others have attempted autoglopes. Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan was threatened by a coup, but his response may have been an autogolpe as he has sought to repress any form of opposition, including democratic dissent. (Source)
Such tactics may work in a banana states or where the institutions have broken down or there is no way to hold a politician’s feet to fire.
But this is India. Modi’s India.
He did not intervene. But he gave enough rope to the Thackerays to bind themselves and hang their entire future as terribly as they had hung Sushant Singh Rajput.
This is the end of the road for Thackeray’s bid for legitimate political power. BJP will never align with them. And they will remain a burden on any alliance.
The only reason why Modi has not taken any action is because of their threat to saddle Mumbai and Maharashtra with riots and use the power of the Lutyen’s media to amplify it in the global forums, while it provides a window of opportunity to Pakistan and China to unleash an attack.
Shiv Sena’s only shield is their shameless anti-India perfidy.
Puchka is also known as paani puri. It is a ball full of water that is brittle meant to break. It is also known as Gol-Gappe. The autogolpe sought to be engineered by the Thackerays has met the fate of the gol-gappe. Transient and meant to go away.
Quite interestingly, now the shady dealings between the Thackerays and the Late Anvay Naik’s family are also coming out. It seems quite clearly from Kirit Somaiya’s tweet that the Shiv Sena leadership has bought (usurped?) Naik family’s land for cheap. (Source)
Mr. Somaiya confirms the dealing in his tweet as well.
This may start the process of tightening the noose.
The global idiom, specifically from the US, had infiltrated and contaminated the Indian political discourse so terribly that some of the Indian woke idiots now suddenly assume they are living in the US as American citizens. The fact is that many of these hardly ever use their brains to even think through their local politics.
This small video says more than anything one could ever say!
With city after city in Europe becoming a hotbed of Islamic terror as the refugees and jihadis find their way to inject violence, some leaders have started to wake up.
Just a small benchmark - Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and Norway are the most fertile recruiting grounds for ISIS fighters! More Muslims from Norway went to fight for ISIS than from Pakistan, despite far smaller populations!
Now, that is some benchmark, ain’t it?! (Source)
Read more about it in our Issue # 110.
Now, the European leaders want to change direction.
Angela Merkel, for example, was the biggest proponent of assimilating Islamic refugees in Europe. Things have ostensibly changed after the many terror attacks.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said it was urgently necessary for Europe to reform the open-border Schengen area in light of recent terrorist attacks. “I want to mention the entry-exit system in the Schengen area, which should be ready in 2022,” she said after a meeting with other European leaders on Tuesday. “It is vitally necessary to know who comes in and who leaves the Schengen area.” (Source)
The European Council President Charles Michel also called for a number of measures to improve the situation in Europe.
These include:
The most interesting suggestion is the creation of a European institute to train imams as a way to curb hate speech and prevent terrorism. Maybe not as radical as China’s “re-educate” policy in Xinjiang, but in the same direction maybe?
“It is important to be firm about this,” Michel said at a press conference with Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz. “I think, for example, that we should have debates at the European level in connection with the idea that was raised some time ago of setting up a European institute for the training of imams, to ensure that this message of tolerance and openness can be conveyed at the European level.” (Source)
The EU draft declaration shows the level of concern that the combined leadership has about upholding common values and the European way of life.
A draft EU declaration, drawn up by the bloc’s current German presidency and seen by the Financial Times, calls on member states to “uphold common values and the European way of life”. It comes after France and Austria have suffered deadly attacks, including the beheading of schoolteacher near Paris and the murder of three people in Nice last month, and shootings by a suspected Islamist gunman that killed four people in Vienna last week. The text, which is still a draft and is due to be endorsed by EU justice and home affairs ministers on Friday (Source)
Please watch this excellent report from Palki Sharma Updhyay.
One in Four in Delhi infected with COVID: Around one in four of the 15,000 people tested in the latest serological survey in the capital showed prevalence of antibodies against Sars-Cov-2, the government informed the Delhi high court on Wednesday, indicating that the proportion of people with antibodies has remained largely unchanged from the previous round of the exercise. The report also showed that a large proportion (43.5%) of people who had previously been diagnosed with Covid-19 remained sero-negative, a statistic that independent experts said underlined how such surveys were underestimating how many people had been exposed. (Source)
Chinese to withdraw?: Chinese troops likely to move back to Finger 8, withdraw tanks from forward locations. After the Chinese tried to make a provocative military move, India occupied critical mountain heights on the southern bank of the Pangong Lake like Rechin La, Rezang La, Mukpari, and Tabletop that were unmanned till now. (Source)
Go to Greece for WFH: Greece wants to use its solid track record in combating the coronavirus as a way to help entice people to move to the country -- and it’s promising that half of their income will be tax-free. Greece won international praise for the way it handled the pandemic last spring. The country has put in place a second lockdown in an attempt to stop the most recent spread of the virus. (Source)
Realty Boom in UK: Global Rich Fuel 1,900% Sales Surge for UK Country Estates. Thanks to Covid-19-related lockdowns, a staggering 19 country estates in the U.K. have sold or are under offer for over £15 million in 2020, according to Savills.
Texas COVID cases cross a million: Texas became America’s first state Wednesday with more than 1 million confirmed Covid-19 cases, as sporting events were canceled and the border city of El Paso added mobile morgues in anticipation of virus deaths overwhelming hospitals for weeks. Texas leaders gave no indication of forthcoming restrictions as the state passed the grim milestone and recorded more than 10,800 new cases on Tuesday, which set a new daily record and is the highest since July. The virus that is surging throughout the US has been unsparing across Texas: The top county official in Fort Worth is pushing to halt youth and school sports, and medical tents were set up outside hospitals for the first time in the rural Panhandle. (Source)
Since 1965, Faustino Barrientos has lived alone on the shores of Lake O'Higgins', Argentina in a house built from the remains of a shipwrecked fishing vessel. He's a pastoralist, living mostly off the land and his livestock, with few modern amenities. His nearest neighbors are in Villa O'Higgins, a small community of several hundred people, 25 miles away, accessible only by a two-day horseback ride through rugged mountain animal paths. Every few years, Faustino makes this ride to sell his cattle in town.
Watch the four part series.
Part 1: http://bit.ly/Living_Alone_1 Part 2: http://bit.ly/Living_Alone_2 Part 3: http://bit.ly/Living_Alone_3 Part 4: http://bit.ly/Living_Alone_4
Check out today’s “The Drishtikone Daily” edition.
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From 1946 to 1948 was the darkest period in India. Starting with Direct Action Day massacres to Partition massacres to the 1948 Brahmin Massacres, a lot of blood was spilled. Let us look at what happened when caretakers of non-violence destroyed us.
Unlike the Jews after Holocaust, the Blacks after Apartheid, Native Americans after the de-humanization, Hindus have had no justice.
Riots have been common in India. But when do riots become the basis of a Genocide and Exodus? A serious analysis of the history of India's partition and the Kashmiri Pandit genocide.
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