THE SOFTEST STATE IN THE WORLD

Two recent incidents involving two European countries illustrate how India handles the World and how the World at large perceives India. Some time back, two soldiers of the Italian armed forces opened fire on an unarmed fishing boat off the coast of Kerala, killing two fishermen. The captain of their ship and the soldiers insist the act is 'not' murder but self defence, since they thought the innocent fishermen were pirates. Till their arrogance and nonchalance became difficult even for normally servile Indians to handle, the murderers and their captain refused to allow Indian policemen even to board the ship for investigations.

About nine months before this happened, an Indian NRI couple Anurup and Sagarika Bhattacharya, working and living in Norway got a taste of European style welfare state authoritarianism. Welfare authorities of Norway accused the couple of not looking aft er their three year-old and one year-old child ‘properly’ and literally snatched them away to be placed in a State-run welfare home. Most of us in India were not even aware of this shocking violation of human rights of an Indian family!

Now look at how Italy reacted aft er its soldiers killed two fishermen in cold blood and how India reacted aft er authorities in Norway made life a living hell for an Indian couple. Within days of the firing incident, top officials of Italy’s foreign ministry descended on Delhi to secure the release of the soldiers. One demented Indian Christian who is now a Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church decided to interfere on behalf of the Italian soldiers. So heavy and so sustained has been the pressure from Italy in this matter that even though the soldiers have been arrested by the Indian police, they happily smoke cigarettes in custody and have pizza delivered to satisfy their taste buds. Don’t be surprised at all if the two Italian soldiers wing their way back home aft er enjoying a ‘holiday’ in God’s Own Country because of some back room deals.

In sharp contrast, Indian authorities didn’t even bother to lift a finger to help when authorities in Norway actually kidnapped two young children of an Indian couple in May 2011. The poor couple fought a lonely and losing battle all the way. [Imagine the plight of a mother losing her three and one year-old kids in such a manner in a distant land with nobody to help.] It is only recently when the grandparents of the children started a protest against this barbaric action in front of the Embassy of Norway that the Indian media and authorities started paying attention. Even then, Norway is refusing to budge and refusing to give the children back to their parents citing Norwegian law. Perhaps one uncle of the kids will now get their custody.

What is the message that is sent across the world by these two separate incidents? It is simple, India and Indians are fair game for bullies. The World already knows that the Indian State is so soft that it can be melted and pasteurised. That perception will become even stronger aft er these two incidents. No wonder India is the only major country in Asia that has been repeatedly invaded, ravaged and pillaged throughout history. And we talk of becoming a 21st century Superpower, eh?

OUR STUPID OBSESSION WITH NARENDRA MODI

The countdown to a macabre anniversary has begun and the media has already started reliving those gory moments and days. Even if you want to, there is simply no way you can avoid reliving the horror. Yes, I am talking about the burning of the S-6 coach of the Sabarmati Express – in which 'Kar Sevaks' were travelling from Ayodhya – at the Godhra station on February 27, 2002, and the subsequent riots in Gujarat that led to the brutal deaths of about 2,000 human beings, most of them Muslims. There is little doubt now that a lot of those killings were conducted in an organised manner and the state government failed to protect innocent citizens. Of course, I must say that the manner in which our secular fundamentalists use the word 'Genocide' to describe the 2002 Gujarat riots have a deeply perverted sense of history as well as the English language. I find it stranger still when the same folk insist that the burning alive of 59 children, women and men inside a train compartment was merely an accident, or a conspiracy hatched by Hindu fanatics to provide ammunition for the pogrom (there goes another word) against Muslims in Gujarat.

Since 2002, no other man or woman in contemporary Indian history has been demonised the way Narendra Modi has been. And as the 10th anniversary of Gujarat riots approaches, you can bet many pundits will dish out more armchair psychiatric nonsense while claiming to analyse the psyche of a ‘mass murderer’ (there goes another word) like Narendra Modi. The more polite and possibly more objective ones will say how the taint of the Gujarat riots will prevent Modi from being able to play a more effective and meaningful role in national politics and even in BJP (God knows how desperately the BJP needs a national leader at this juncture). The more ideologically perverted types will continue to declare him persona non grata. By the way, our Indian comrades managed to convince Capitalist and Imperialist America to deny a visa to Modi. But I guess the comrades either forgot to ask or failed in their attempts to persuade Communist China to deny a visa to Modi! I think such small ironies of life entirely escape our Indian Left ies who still think Stalin and Mao were 20th century versions of God.

So Modi as Ravana will become the leitmotif for India in the coming weeks. But don’t you honestly think we are going too far in our obsession to demonise the man? And that we are belittling ourselves and India in the bargain? I wont repeat stuff about how our media conveniently ignores the massacre of Sikhs in 1984 and the myriad massacres of Muslims in the (then) Bombay, in Bhagalpur, in Nellie, in Meerut and many other places in which surely Narendra Modi was not the ‘mastermind’ (there goes another word).

But I will ask you this if you honestly believe in the Indian Constitution and the Supreme Court. The latter has relentlessly pursued the Gujarat riots cases, including transferring them to other states so that the killers could be punished and the victims get justice. So can we allow the Supreme Court to finish its job before we pass verdicts? Of course, if you are convinced that Maoists are Gandhians with Guns, you probably are convinced that the Supreme Court of India is a conspiracy hatched by Goebbels.