http://www.news18.com/news/india/opinion-dear-liberals-dont-push-your-agenda-over-gauri-lankeshs-dead-body-1513179.html

Gauri Lankesh was gunned down in Bengaluru on Wednesday. Twitter, Facebook and TV erupted within minutes over the brutal, inhuman, murder. Lankesh’s politics was well-known, no surprise then that it didn’t take Lutyens’ Delhi’s news anchors and ‘which caste-art-thou’ liberals much time to blame the BJP and RSS. Their presumptive conclusions and quick closure of Lankesh’s murder was based on troll handles — some of which might not even represent any citizen of this nation!

For a moment, let us forget the glorious legacy of Lankesh — the daughter of a revolutionary poet, a fierce advocate of her own brand of politics, an erstwhile Naxal sympathiser who had helped mainstream more than a dozen Maoists et al. Let us forget that she warned of infighting among her own ideologues. Let us forget her articles against her own ideological kin. 

Let us also forget that she was writing against the state government of Karnataka and was in the process of exposing industry-politics nexus in her state through her writings. Let us forget that she was being threatened. Let us forget the tweet she put out the day she was murdered. Let us forget all this because among other things she was also a hardline Hindutva critic. Let us hijack this last identity within her many identities and heat up our political bakery!

Yes, of course, Gauri Lankesh and I stand at opposite ends of the ideological spectrum. So do the Sangh functionaries in Karnataka. But are we rejoicing at her murder? No. Are we supporting trolls who have been rejoicing at her death? No. Soon after news broke of her murder, I called up an RSS functionary in Karnataka and this is what he told me: “Gauriji was never supportive of the Sangh. But she helped society in her own way. We respected that. And we will continue to respect that. Despite her or anyone’s ideological affiliation, we are open to ideas that strengthen the nation, at large, and in the long run.”

So who are the vultures that are hovering around her corpse? Do they belong to just one colour of the ideological spectrum? Who are asking the right questions? And who are raising rhetorical flourish just to shield the real culprits? We need to name and shame one and all.

There are shameless violent handles on Twitter who are justifying Gauri’s death as if it is all part of an ideological war. That she had met a Frankenstein-like fate. I cringe at the thoughts of some of these self-appointed contractors of Hindu faith! I cringe at the mention of the eye-begets-eye narrative. Why is it that we cannot stand up and say united: murders are unacceptable. Period. As a Hindu woman who believes in the ideology that Gauri detested, let me categorically say it: Extremism is extremism. Murder is murder. Whatever the shade. Whatever the intent.

However, does this take away the merit of criticizing the selective outrage surrounding Gauri’s death? You may call it “whataboutery”, but I can’t help ask. Did the ‘what-caste-art-thou’ celeb anchors outrage even once on the death of Rajdeo Ranjan, who was killed by goons of Lalu Yadav’s partyman Mohammed Shahabuddin? Or Jagendra Singh, who was doing a story on the then UP Minority Affairs minister, Rammoorti Verma? Or Rajesh Verma, who was covering the Muzaffarnagar riots? Or M.V.N. Shankar, who was trying to expose the oil mafia? Or Tarun Kumar, a stringer in Odisha? Or Sai Reddy, who was killed by unidentified armed men, possibly Naxals in Bijapur? Or Ramchandra Chhatrapati in Sirsa? Or more than 40 journalists in the Northeast? And why did they not? Can we ask these questions please now?

Is it because none of these journalists wrote in English but in regional or Hindi language? Is it because none of them were as vocal against the Sangh Parivar as Gauri Lankesh was? Is it because they were less glamorous because they did not write for new propaganda foreign groups/citizens’ funded mushroom network of news-views websites? Why has there not been a swell of an uprising so far by the same select coterie? Why is some blood always a tad bit more darker for them?

How did these ‘journalists’ assume that ‘Hindu Terror groups’, as they are being referred to, killed Lankesh? What is the ulterior back channel arrangement or conversation that coaxes them to conceal that Lankesh was under threat from Naxals? Should we be hasty just as they have been and say that Gauri’s death is a carefully orchestrated mystery that surrounds the political reality of elections due in Karnataka in a few months from now? Should we say that the ruling dispensation in Karnataka and these journalists have a collusion that need expose as well?

Let us address sane straight concerns. Law and order is a state subject. Why have signature petitions not been started yet demanding Karnataka CM’s resignation? What stops them from collectively demanding accountability from the state government?

Let us ask questions. Let us demand answers. But let us do that in a tone, which is, sharp yet civil, sarcastic, if you may like, but parliamentary.

(The author is with India Foundation, views are personal)

http://www.news18.com/news/india/opinion-dear-liberals-dont-push-your-agenda-over-gauri-lankeshs-dead-body-1513179.html

Opinion | A Fan Girl's Ode to Nirmala Sitharaman, the Graceful Warrior

http://www.news18.com/news/india/opinion-a-fan-girls-ode-to-nirmala-sitharaman-the-graceful-warrior-1508289.html

In a recent article in the Organiser, decolonising gender discourse, I recalled the Indic way in which nari shakti or women power has culturally been understood and respected. I made an emphatic appeal to go to back to appreciating our Vedic worldview of looking at Indian women and power so that we realise the real impact of westernised model of feminist struggles.

Ideologically, the premise that women are an inferior sex never really held ground in the ancient Indic tradition. And historically, the legends of Rani Lakshmi Bai, Basantalata Hazarika, Tirot Sing Syiem, Rani Gaidinliu, Khuangchera, Rajkumari Gupta, Kittur Rani Chennamaa, Uda Devi, Janaky Athi Nahappan, Accamaa Cherian, Bhima Bai Holkar, Azizan Bai, Pritilata Waddedar, Rani Velu Nachiyar, Bhogeshwari Phuknani and Gulab Kaur among multiple others have proved the enthusiastic presence and mettle of women as frontier defence soldiers and commanders in the freedom struggle. However, it took more than seven decades in post-colonial India to have a woman at the helm of the all-important Defence Ministry.

Nirmala Sitharaman joins Modi's Cabinet as the first ever non-dynast woman Defence Minister after the reshuffle. This elevation is an assertion of many opinions on part of the ruling dispensation. First, that gender will not come in the way of one's merit, irrespective of the historical precedents. Let us have a quick look at the portfolios women have held in independent India thus far.

In Nehru's first cabinet, the sole woman minister Amrit Kaur handled the Health portfolio. In the second, third and fourth Nehru ministries, women were conspicuous by their absence. Similarly, Indira Gandhi – considered as the Durga of India, an epitome of women empowerment, did not allow any woman a ministerial berth in her cabinet in her entire political career. Rajiv Gandhi had one woman minister Mohsina Kidwai who held important portfolios. In Manmohan Singh's first regime, two women made it to the Cabinet. In UPA II too, two women occupied the Cabinet berth. The overall 10% representation of women in the entire ministry made Team Manmohan the most women-friendly cabinet. But in the new cabinet in 2014, women saw a 25% representation in Team Modi – the highest ever.

Second, this reshuffle asserted that women will not be relegated to traditionally considered soft roles of Health, Social Welfare, Women and Child Development, Textiles and Housing alone. With Sushma Swaraj in External Affairs, Smriti Irani in HRD, Uma Bharati in Water Resources and River Development first and Drinking Water & Sanitation now, and Nirmala Sitharaman in Commerce first and defence now, the Modi government has shattered the glass ceiling of ministerial untouchability in certain portfolios. Detractors might dub it symbolism, but this symbolism was much needed in a country obsessed with women in stereotypical roles of scrubbing dishes in popular culture in a primly tied sari with a pallu over her head.

Third, this is an ideological assertion of commitment towards women empowerment that resonates from a Prime Ministerial candidate in 2013 and early 2014 who for the first time called women home-makers and not derisively used the term house wives, in the hey days of his campaign. The carrying forward of that legacy in dealing with women and their role in his team as the Prime Minister is a historic opportunity that all feminists must lay claim to.

I have been a huge fan of Nirmala Sitharaman. I have been fortunate to interact with her at length when she visited Assam in 2015. She visited as the inaugural speaker at the Assam Nirman Dialogue Series that we at the BJP were organising as a part of a public consensus-building exercise for the state vision document.

Her graciousness to dress up in the traditional Assamese sari, her combative and tenacious spirit with which she dealt with detractors who wanted to corner her and pressurize her to accept the demands of business lobbies (she was the Commerce Minister then) and her graceful demeanour in accepting – and blushing at – profuse compliments that students offered her way, has had a huge impact on me.

As a Defence Minister, one is not just required to be hot-headed. One is required to have the maturity and grace to handle situations symbolically and otherwise. One is required to be firm without being too aggressive. And of course, one is needed to be sensitive to the fragility of bilateral ties despite tough defence equations. Nirmalaji has proved herself as a graceful warrior in the recent meeting with the Chinese delegates in trying times.

Here is wishing Nirmalaji all the best for her new innings and here is wishing all the women out there a renewed vigour in different battles we fight to claim our spaces.

(The author is with India Foundation, views are personal)

http://www.news18.com/news/india/opinion-a-fan-girls-ode-to-nirmala-sitharaman-the-graceful-warrior-1508289.html

Comment | In Exiting Mahagathbandhan, Nitish has Outsmarted all, Including the BJP

http://www.news18.com/news/politics/comment-in-exiting-mahagathbandhan-nitish-has-outsmarted-all-including-the-bjp-1475201.html

The mysterious corridors of a plot in House of Cards would definitely have paled after what we saw in Bihar on Wednesday. From starting out as an electoral and political Opposition to the harbinger of royally corrupt dynastic politics in Bihar, Lalu Prasad Yadav, to embracing him in the name of a secular Mahagathbandhan to screeching ‘Sangh Mukt Bharat’ to a complete volte-face by joining hands with the BJP, Nitish Kumar has emerged as a formidable politician who teaches a lesson or two to the politically puerile Opposition forces in the country.

Also, the significance of this political moment throws up so many definitions and dismantles so many theories that one is encouraged to think beyond the classic silos of opportunism, morality, ideology and pragmatism. It has demonstrated rather clearly that to be in power is a tough negotiation — often one which looks for compounding and competing claims than plain vanilla assertions of elemental moments:

1. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s tweet consolidates the public position that has taken a firm stand within the communalism-secularism-corruption debate — one that has chosen corruption as a far more appealing and democratic rhetoric than secularism in our political discourse. After a series of attempts at political harakiri by the Opposition (including the largely English media) in raking up elitist issues, totally disconnected from the concerns on ground, after misreading again and again the pulse of the people and politics at the rural and urban units, after the arrogant dismissal of the clear writing on the wall not just elections after elections, after choosing to not acknowledge the dissipating interest of the public in the polarisation brought about in campuses or in front of National monuments in Delhi or carefully orchestrated TV studio wars, the opposition has no option but to justify their harakiri by a graceful admittance of corruption being a larger political issue than secularism.

Perhaps one retweet of the PM’s secular pronouncement of this phase in Indian politics would have saved the Opposition the exhaustion of repeated failed attempts at raking a political nonissue. But as they say in the Hindu tradition, ‘Vinaash Kaale Vipareet Buddhi’. 

2. The fact that Nitish Kumar, one of the most glamorised faces of the united opposition, chose to expose this ‘unity’, marks such a serious dent in the whole narrative of the anti-Modi brigade that it would be churlish to dismiss the far reaching consequences of this movement in the politics of this country. One look at the political map of India today suggests the clout of a single party. A studied relook clearly marks the unchartered territories that could or would easily come around in BJP’s kitty because electorates in India have traditionally favored the strong muscles.

3. Nitish Kumar’s hunger to stay in power, come what may, suggests a very practical position that possibly also solves a typically moral question — to be or not to be — that often rattles political scientists. Moving out of the poesy of the electoral campaign to beginning to govern in prose, Nitish has shown rather authoritatively that one needs to grab and stay in power first before anything else.

4. The question on Nitish’s moral authority can be debated or discarded or accepted. But what one can’t take away from him is the showcasing of his morality. Any shrewd reader of politics would respect this man purely because he has managed perception as doggedly as he has managed his morality.

I was a part of his campaign efforts in Bihar. As a Bihari woman, I had been staunchly against the Mahagathbandhan on matters of principles and betrayal of a basic mandate Nitish Kumar enjoys term after term in his reelection. I saw similar feelings echoing within the ranks and files of the JDU – Mahila Prakoshth –primarily. I also saw the discomfort of Nitish in dealing with the rather unholy alliance in his prophetic yet explanatory tweet: जो रहीम उत्तम प्रकृति का करि सकत कुसंग। चंदन विष व्यापत नहीं लिपटे रहत भुजंग।।

This development generates a wave of sympathy for him among a major cross section of Biharis.

From acknowledging that his alliance partner RJD was a foul party to flinging himself in the agnipareeksha of immoral politics, confident that he will emerge untainted, Nitish generated a huge amount of credible sympathy and support for himself in the 2015 elections. In terms of sheer political tamasha, this moving out of that unholy alliance seems to have made a graceful exit of an incorruptible politician. By resorting to a rhetoric of ‘I can’t take it any longer’, he seemed to have emerged virtuous in a dirty war of nefarious designs.

The marvel of breaking the Opposition by not even agreeing to assault them but by slyly moving out of the edifice taking away the foundation itself has been a masterstroke that will define his most politically astute moves in his political lifetime by far.

Anyone in Bihar would admit that Mahagathbandhan was a flop without Nitish Kumar. Any citizen of that state would confide that had it not been for his clean face, the RJD would not have resurrected itself. By taking away the sheen from the lustrous design that the political climate created then, Nitish has outsmarted one and all — including the BJP, to some extent.

(The author is an assistant editor, India Foundation Journal, and project head, northeast operations. Views expressed are personal)

http://www.news18.com/news/politics/comment-in-exiting-mahagathbandhan-nitish-has-outsmarted-all-including-the-bjp-1475201.html

Opinion | Exposing Hypocrisy of 'Not In My Name' Protests And Lazy MaSuKa Draft

http://www.news18.com/news/india/opinion-exposing-hypocrisy-of-not-in-my-name-protests-and-lazy-masuka-draft-1456111.html

The 'Not in My Name' political brigade comprising of part-time campaigners, seasonal glamorous activists and hypocrite artists who have floated MaSuKa are being retweeted by the Congress-Communists Clandestine Combine in India. The petition addresses Prime Minister Congress-Communists bonhomie and calls for making a new law in the country. Very surreptitiously on charges of being selective, a paragraph on Bengal has been slipped in after social media protests.

First of all, it is queer to find that some of the erstwhile petition politicians who protested against Modi's democratic ascent to Delhi in 2014 referred to him as the Prime Minister. This acknowledgement of authority and not just power itself is a huge telling of the battles these activists chose to fight and lose – badly – on account of myopic political positioning.

Secondly, the classic and established laziness and refusal of the Congress-Communists Clandestine Combine in India to research before they demand a law or a new order is another dampener of the perpetrated movement. Anyone who values democracy, federalism and the Constitution in this country would know that law and order is a state subject. If the Union government decides on a law that ought to be made by states in the newly formed, democratically elected state legislatures, it would be booed down by another faction of the same selectively outraged and forever Modi baiters – the freedom of expression brigade – under the name of authoritarianism.

Thirdly, it is no rocket science for any conscientious citizen of India with ears and eyes on ground to understand that implementation of existing laws and not absence of new laws is a problem in this country. It would be puerile to imagine and advocate that bringing in new laws in India is going to solve issues. 

Fourthly, this carefully crafted campaign by the Congress-Communists Clandestine Combine is a political tool that rides on MaSuKa. Bringing in a new law and then christening it with a Gandhi surname later is the tactic of the rotten communal Congress' political dispensation in this country. It does not matter to this party, who holds democracy at hostage, to consider that National Commission of Minorities has dismissed the import and implications of this unnecessary petition and MaSuKa. 

My country is fascinating motley of various kinds of secularisms and freedom of expression brigades. I have maintained that the Congress-Communists Clandestine Combine in India has ensured the catatonic catastrophe of democracy and decency in this country.

The erstwhile organic 'Not in My Name' protest has been completely hijacked by the extremely political Tehseen Poonawallas and Shehla Rashids of the world. The online world where this petition politics plays out its cards has lost the moral credibility it embraced in its erstwhile organic texture. Just one look at who is retweeting whom and who is supporting whom reveals this orchestrated jugalbandi of petty petition politics.

But what is shocking is the absolute silence over Bengal in comparison to the clamor on Pahlu Khan and Junaid. What is also debilitating is the condescending dismissal of concerns for Human Rights in Bengal under the umbrella of derisive terminology - 'whataboutery' – when the intensity and absence of congruent outrage is called out for. 

Politics is about asking the questions 'what about'. And dictatorship is about dismissing the questions in a way in which some questions become more important than others, in which some tears become saltier than others and in which some blood becomes more expensive than others. Often politics is not about the 'what', it is about the 'how'.

(The author is assistant editor, India Foundation Journal, and project head, northeast operations. Views expressed are personal)

http://www.news18.com/news/india/opinion-exposing-hypocrisy-of-not-in-my-name-protests-and-lazy-masuka-draft-1456111.html

Lynchings Wrong, Selective Outrage Equally Cringe Worthy

http://www.news18.com/news/india/lynchings-wrong-selective-outrage-equally-cringe-worthy-1447091.html

Let us be clear that lynch narratives in India are never secular — they are impassioned and lopsided either one way or the other. This is why the discussion on Jantar Mantar protests cannot be done in isolation as a purely people's movement - for it may have begun as one but it is not anymore. 

The problem with the world we inhabit today is polarisation. The issue is either pro or anti. Black or white. National or anti national. Secular or Communal. 

The death of nuance is what pained me last night in the debate at Bhupendra Chaubey’s show Viewpoint on CNN-News18 when a recount of serial and systematic silence on brutal and heart rending cases of violence against non-Muslims was loudly interpreted as a vote justifying mob lynching of Muslims. The more such selective outrage happens, the clearer the various writings on the wall are. 

You cannot talk logic and debate in a sustained fashion today, for the fear of uttering or writing something which is 'politically incorrect' - a term ideologically defined and defended by a group of elites in this country. Unfortunately, it has become imperative to wear an ideological cloak even while discussing moral questions, either because you have to defend selective secularism or because you have to expose the selective ideological amnesia and dementia. In the process, one may want to be as balanced as a weighing scale projecting two sides of the arguments, but one has to often choose 'touchy', 'politically incorrect', 'untouchable' issues for articulation. Balance can come only when there is equal and equitable, responsible and balanced articulation of reasons for and condemnation of all cases of human rights' violation, violence, rapes and riots. 

There is of course no doubt that lynchings are inhuman, unfit as a marker of any human civilisation. And because all lynchings are wrong, the reportage of Muslims being killed by Hindus and Hindus being killed by 'some' people, in case the killers are Muslims, is as communal and targeted as lynchings themselves. For far too long narratives of organised hatred against the majority by the elite intellectuals and English media editors' guild in India have been defining a skewed and dangerous idea of secularism in this country. 

Not everyone in this nation has the luxury of such incisive and piercing verbal articulation against violence or selective outrage. But their inability to capacitate the building of a verbose written or spoken narrative cannot be an impediment in a socialist democracy to dismiss their actions by a group of an entitled and intellectually elite mob. 

A reaction can be and must be pulled out and called out for its socially debilitating ramifications. But a silence to even address the action which facilitated the reaction is as much a part of the lynch mob herd mentality. Unless we accept this reality, the facade of looking for solutions is optimistic hypocrisy. 

I was expecting the 'organic' outburst of 'collective' anger at Jantar Mantar to protest against the recent humiliation of a Meghalayan woman by a part of this same English speaking colonial and feudal elite that has no qualms in calling a PM candidate unfit for his tea selling background. 

I was expecting a protest against the murder of two males in the household of Kerala CM's home village and the pattern of lynch mob in Kerala. I was expecting a strong protest against Muslim lynch mobs who have brutally raped and murdered women in Hojai and Marghareita in Assam. 

But I was expecting too much from the media perhaps who focused on Jantar Mantar and gave prime time slots to articulate what some elite groups comprising of some same faces who have made protests their way of overstaying their interests in Delhi. 

Having said what I have said, I reiterate, all lynchings are wrong, abhorrent, a blot on humanity. And similarly cringe worthy is selective outrage. More pathetic is Congress-Communists clandestine combine that spills over its jugalbandi in such opportunistic free loading in protests like these.

(The author is assistant editor, India Foundation Journal, and project head, northeast operations. Views expressed are personal)

http://www.news18.com/news/india/lynchings-wrong-selective-outrage-equally-cringe-worthy-1447091.html

Don't Dismiss Criticism As "Internet Hindus" Or "Online Bhakts"

https://www.ndtv.com/blog/when-journalists-complain-about-online-sexual-threats-1682298

An English media journalist in India who appears to have visceral hatred for Mr. Modi has rightly made a hue and cry about online sexual threats against her.

Her abuser was kicked out of his job in the UAE and is to be deported back to India. The journalist has chosen to emerge as a champion for women rights ever since. She has also been, among others in her fraternity, indulging in propaganda describing UAE's legislation as an exemplary precedent.

In the aforementioned case, journalistic ethics were kept hostage. In her insatiable hunger to emerge as a hero and a feminist, the journalist chose to deliberately withhold crucial information with regards to the case which punished the perpetrator in the end. It has been alleged by some sections in the local media in the UAE that the legislation which evicted the online abuser from his job was not based on a feminist's appeal to protect the dignity of women, but a theocratic Islamic state shutting down a voice of dissent against Islam.

For my discussion in this article, I choose this incident as a base to talk about the larger issues surrounding online hatred, bullying, abuse, manipulation and violence, which demands more nuance and less noise. 

It is dangerous, shameful, unprofessional and manipulative on the part of journalists of repute to erroneously conflate and confuse issues like feminism, in this case, with religious intolerance. Not only do they successfully dilute the ramifications of outrage that must accompany violence against women, they also ensure that issues of religious intolerance are drowned and dismissed in a cacophony of mutual incitement to slur and abuse. While I most obviously dissociate from this manipulative act of concealing comprehensive information by a fellow media person, I unequivocally denounce any act of violence - verbal included.

This brings me to address another suppressed issue. It is an indisputable fact that online debate in social media is sharply divided across opposing political camps. Unfortunate as it is, you are either on the side of political dispensations, or are against the espoused views by overenthusiastic political representatives. This phenomenon cuts across party lines. There has been a merciless murder of nuance and, in effect, democracy. It works both ways. If you oppose a government policy, you are an anti-national, and if you support any positive move, you are deemed a bhakt.

English-speaking, articulate, Anglophile journalistic brands on Twitter often dismiss dissent against themselves with labels like "Internet Hindus" and "Modi bhakts" when called out on misreported facts and beguiling intentions. These journalists do not just spew verbal venom against those who express concerns over politically biased reportage that informs their career spans, they also ensure that voices which question are silenced and blocked.

On the other hand, there are self-appointed certifying agencies of nationalism on Twitter who judge the 140 characters on handles populating the social media on the basis of some unknown matrix of nationalism alert. The certifying agents allege, and in part, they are right, that media editors' guilds at large have been spewing an organised hate campaign, often rhetorical, against the new politics of the day. It is unfortunate that in this highly-charged atmosphere of political polarisation, violent threats from online abusers are met with epithets like "dumbass fuckwit eunuchs" from acclaimed authors and journalists who have come to gain an intellectual brand, thanks to their legitimization by mainstream TV studios and the established editors' guild in India. 

An English media journalist in India who appears to have visceral hatred for Mr. Modi has rightly made a hue and cry about online sexual threats against her.

Her abuser was kicked out of his job in the UAE and is to be deported back to India. The journalist has chosen to emerge as a champion for women rights ever since. She has also been, among others in her fraternity, indulging in propaganda describing UAE's legislation as an exemplary precedent.

In the aforementioned case, journalistic ethics were kept hostage. In her insatiable hunger to emerge as a hero and a feminist, the journalist chose to deliberately withhold crucial information with regards to the case which punished the perpetrator in the end. It has been alleged by some sections in the local media in the UAE that the legislation which evicted the online abuser from his job was not based on a feminist's appeal to protect the dignity of women, but a theocratic Islamic state shutting down a voice of dissent against Islam.

For my discussion in this article, I choose this incident as a base to talk about the larger issues surrounding online hatred, bullying, abuse, manipulation and violence, which demands more nuance and less noise. 

It is dangerous, shameful, unprofessional and manipulative on the part of journalists of repute to erroneously conflate and confuse issues like feminism, in this case, with religious intolerance. Not only do they successfully dilute the ramifications of outrage that must accompany violence against women, they also ensure that issues of religious intolerance are drowned and dismissed in a cacophony of mutual incitement to slur and abuse. While I most obviously dissociate from this manipulative act of concealing comprehensive information by a fellow media person, I unequivocally denounce any act of violence - verbal included.

This brings me to address another suppressed issue. It is an indisputable fact that online debate in social media is sharply divided across opposing political camps. Unfortunate as it is, you are either on the side of political dispensations, or are against the espoused views by overenthusiastic political representatives. This phenomenon cuts across party lines. There has been a merciless murder of nuance and, in effect, democracy. It works both ways. If you oppose a government policy, you are an anti-national, and if you support any positive move, you are deemed a bhakt.

English-speaking, articulate, Anglophile journalistic brands on Twitter often dismiss dissent against themselves with labels like "Internet Hindus" and "Modi bhakts" when called out on misreported facts and beguiling intentions. These journalists do not just spew verbal venom against those who express concerns over politically biased reportage that informs their career spans, they also ensure that voices which question are silenced and blocked.

On the other hand, there are self-appointed certifying agencies of nationalism on Twitter who judge the 140 characters on handles populating the social media on the basis of some unknown matrix of nationalism alert. The certifying agents allege, and in part, they are right, that media editors' guilds at large have been spewing an organised hate campaign, often rhetorical, against the new politics of the day. It is unfortunate that in this highly-charged atmosphere of political polarisation, violent threats from online abusers are met with epithets like "dumbass fuckwit eunuchs" from acclaimed authors and journalists who have come to gain an intellectual brand, thanks to their legitimization by mainstream TV studios and the established editors' guild in India. 

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It is a situation of a perfect fix. A few anonymous abusers become branded as trolls by media and "intellectuals" as ones who represent and define online hate culture. At the same time, acclaimed and articulate elites showering social media users with choicest abusesgain in stature by being invited on prime time shows. On the one hand, a leader following the hate handles - not retweeting or endorsing abusive content - is accused of encouraging violence. On the other hand, there is a subtle yet organized censorship to even discuss the journalist-editor-author-intellectual trolls who are verbally violent and subversive to the very idea of democracy.

It is impossible to miss the intellectual dishonesty in embracing a puritanical attitude on the one hand when it comes to dissenting against the government, but on the other, donning a vicious, abusive and verbally violent demeanour to shut down (often less than one's self's) voices of factual and ideological challenge in crass terminologies. We don't even know if the handles that outrage or instigate are a part of a larger political conspiracy, or represent a genuine outburst of marginalised issues, sharpened at the alters of anger and frustration over prolonged bouts of non-addressal by the clandestine combine of media editors' guild, academia and civil society.

We must not forget that a Bharat exists beyond our elite cocoons of privileged modes and spaces of articulation where there are real cases of abuse. In a make-belief world of social media, by resorting to hyper-victim mode, we endorse and initiate certain issues which may have scant bearing on the ground. We need not mention states like Kerala, our North Eastern states, West Bengal, etc. among others. These are states where issues of actual rapes are suppressed, issues of real cases of political lynching are obfuscated.

With liberal democratization of space, non-factual, emotional, rhetorical and ideological positions have been exposed to the realities of data, counter-emotions-rhetoric and contrarian ideologies cemented by democratic electoral mandates. Direct democracy in terms of access to someone as high in office as the Prime Minister of this country has taken away the aura and fake elitism of privileged access to Lutyens' seats of power. Today, leaders and even acclaimed media persons are just a tweet away for anyone - the elites and the "trolls".

Publicly active and engaged profiles must be open to being challenged and being humbled by factual or argumentative course corrections. A 15-minute panel discussion with five panelists and ideationally pompous moderator, or a 140-character tweet, cannot sharpen the vibrancy of democracy like India. The debates have to move beyond the AC rooms of India into the lanes and gullies of Bharat. And most importantly, however incorrect they may sound or read on the well-fed ideas of political correctness, issues need address, not violent or subtle suppression or clampdown or block and subsequent murder by non-availability.

(Shubhrastha is Assistant Editor of the India Foundation Journal and Political Consultant at the Office of BJP General Secretary Ram Madhav.)

https://www.ndtv.com/blog/when-journalists-complain-about-online-sexual-threats-1682298

What The Congress Should Have Thought Of Before Walking Out Of The Rajya Sabha

https://swarajyamag.com/blogs/what-the-congress-should-have-thought-of-before-walking-out-of-the-rajya-sabha

When a speech is made in the Indian Parliament, two types of politicians speak – one who hold government positions and the other who just represent their constituency or state in the House. For the latter, the responsibility is rather simple – to express the voices of those they represent in a rather politically driven speech. For the former, however, the responsibility is multi-fold – to address and justify the politics he/she represents and to attend to the questions, submit reports and pacify opposition voices. In the case of the latest speech made by the Prime Minister (PM) of India in the Rajya Sabha, the predicament of the second category of politicians seems to be more amplified.

Among many other things that the PM spoke on and about, the central theme of the address happened to be about fighting the menace of corruption, charting out the progress being made through the measures being taken by his government and re-emphasizing the underlying intent behind the measures. One among the many things that were spoken was a political jibe at the ex-PM and now a Rajya Sabha Member from Assam, Dr Manmohan Singh.

As usual, nuances, details and comprehensive totality of things got lost in the political conundrum that Indian politics has come to represent these days. The zoom- in happened on a statement made by the PM on Dr Manmohan Singh. The PM said that Dr Singh has managed to emerge taintless from all corruption cases as if someone took a bath with the raincoat on. In response, the opposition staged a walk out.

Just as it happened in Bihar on the DNA comment, prior to elections, the comment is being campaigned against by the opposition with the argument that the PM has lowered the level of political discourse in the nation. And it is repetitively hilarious because the opinion makers in the opposition party, who are speaking about this lowering of the discourse, had no word to voice, whatsoever, when the PM was called a psychopath, ‘maut ka saudagar’ and accused of doing ‘khoon ki dalaali’ by their very same intellectual and/or electoral counterparts. Do these people who are standing in opposing voices against the PM’s statements have the moral fulcrum to even talk of a concept like propriety of a political discourse?

The opposition has shied away from serious discussions on issues like the Goods and Services Tax (GST) in the past (later conceding, of course!), demonetization, Uniform Civil Code among many others. Does it even have the right to speak about rules of a decent political discourse when it does not even add substantially to debates in the parliament? Does it even have the authority to talk about rules of politics when rather than representing the voice of the people who have sent these politicians to the various Houses, they are more interested in talking to the cameras? Let us see how the opposition expresses itself within what it calls a political discourse.

It stages a walk out from the prestigious parliament wasting millions of public money in the drama. It resorts to pure optics by taking to social media to outrage with paid social media trolls in order to trend a hashtag. If the politics behind the walk out was to not indulge in mudslinging (that is what they feel that poetic expression or analogy was), it clearly lost its meaning as soon as the members walked out! Their game was on and their well-oiled machinery in action. Let us not stay in the dark about this. The opposition wanted to talk but in the political akhada outside and not in the prestigious House.

Placed in parallel to such a melodramatic and undemocratic opposition, can a politician in the House defend his stance for once in an equivalent if not the same measure? The PM gave figures to back up, how more than 700 Maoists have surrendered since demonetisation and how nowhere in the world has an exercise of this scale happened before.

And what did the opposition do? Instead of giving decent, structured and/or contesting claims to government figures, it chose to stick to a political personality’s speech and let the seriousness of a political discourse be overtaken by the frivolity of opposition optics.

Sometimes as a citizen, I even wonder if at all the Congress wants to sit in the House. Their party Vice President is mostly absent when opposition leaders speak, the party never raises or contributes to issues of national interest being discussed in the House and most definitely it prefers media and social media more over the well of the august House. It is also telling of how and what the political discourse in India has been reduced to.

The limited point is this. In a democracy, no one but the electorate decides what is politically acceptable and what is not. No one decides on moral issues unless there is a mandate or a sustained back up of arguments from all quarters. And no amount of high-handed pseudo-intellectual arm-twisting should be allowed to steal away the flavor of democracy. What is Prime Ministerial or not cannot be decided by an elite few drunk on established codes of conduct and failing utterly to contextualize the behavior or speech.

Democracy is about free speech, free expression and free exchange of ideas. If at all the opposition cares about this institution and concept, it could have stayed and made its point and not done a childish walk out from the well of the House.

https://swarajyamag.com/blogs/what-the-congress-should-have-thought-of-before-walking-out-of-the-rajya-sabha