Introducing the real Indian secularist; Reality Television

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For over 60 years the Indian government and its huge media machine has been trying to project a unified India. Sometimes bravely, sometimes with little logic, they have sought to create one culture that represents India. If you look at the coverage of Kashmir & the North-East from Doordarshan, you would be led to believe that these regions are the sweetest, most peaceful regions in the world. Their populace spends their time singing and dancing and working off the land. In a genre of film making that died with the soviet era, we see a strange cinematic parody of sub-cultures mixed with very poor quality documentary film making creating a lost in space and time feeling. In reality these regions have been the centre of bitter struggles, and the populace has suffered first at the hands of indifferent governments and then at the hands of rebels turned terrorists....

26/11 From Tragedy to farce?

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A top cop accuses 3 other top cops of not being on the scene of action on 26/11/08 He then retracts his statements. In the meantime media has gone to town, and 3 cops come under a public shadow. Net result, we waste the time of 3 critical cops, the time of an under-staffed and poorly budgeted department...and distract them from their duty; keeping us safe. We are busy arguing about faulty bullet proof vests. Isn't the best test to make politicians wear them and start firing at them? :) A strange photograph in the newspaper showed us a diagram revealing that all terrorist bullets magically missed the vest and entered Karkare's body through the unprotected areas, thus saving the guys who bought the vests. I remembered the magic bullet from JFK...the one that traveled all over kennedy:) Two 'Force One' commandos....trained to combat terrorism,....

Democracy + Pakistan = Peace with India

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Pakistan is one of the most fragile nation states in the world. Plagued by multiple regimes that have plundered the very soul of Pakistan, it is a country falling apart from all angles. No one plays their allocated role in Pakistan...the disemboweled judiciary competes with the elected government, the ISI functions like a rogue shadow army, the army functions like a quasi government, and the people of Pakistan are torn asunder by the incompetence of all these institutions. After successive aborted attempts at democracy, Pakistan seems to be in the middle of another political quagmire...a hydra headed government striking dubious deals with the Taliban, settling for a questionable 'peace' and abdicating large tracts of Pakistan to a movement that has created chaos in the region. While it pulls at the skirt of America, in search of much needed finance, it also plays ball with terrorist groups, fundamentalists and....

How did Mutalik and the LeT crack our code?

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(Terrorism strategy in the reality TV age.) Mutalik was a NOBODY before his goons launched a very strategic attack. After years of goofing around in the wilderness, he suddenly realized that India only takes notice if you hit her in her soft underbelly. The upper middle classes and their icons are the only relevant target for a terrorist like Kasab or a gender terrorist like Mutalik. Their strategy is the same. It says very clearly; if you want media attention and 'national' attention, you need to wage a symbolic war against the icons of the upper classes in India. Only then will you become an instant national icon...and now, an international icon. Mutalik does not care about the upper middle class and the pub going Indian. He is willing to beat them up to prove he does not care. He is concerned with a....

The moral parody in my half-hometown

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Being a half-Mangalorean, I am aghast at the incident. Mangalore used to be a calm and cosmopolitan place. In the last few years it has become a communal hot-spot. This transition has been engineered by political parties working hand in glove with their non-party partners. The clothes people wore, their social events and the religion they follow were never an issue in Mangalore. It was a peaceful town, and now, it's ruined. In the desperate lurch for votes and attention, the right wing extremists of India have launched an offensive on the very Idea of a secular and progressive India. This disease is pan-Indian and its effects are frightening and long-lasting. Whether it's the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra disrupting Valentine's Day or the 'Ram' Sena in Mangalore, the strategy remains blatantly effective and simple. Choose obvious and vulnerable targets, out-number them,....