The war within -Am I a patriot or anti-national?

Recently whole of India was abuzz with the news that the Indian Army had conducted surgical strikes in the Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK). While Indians were very proud of the action taken by the Indian Army soon the politicians started doing what they do the best. : start politicizing.  While the opposition took Pakistan's denial on face value which they failed to recognize that any sovereign country would deny any action by a enemy country on territory under their control and while our defense minister resorted to some chest thumping that this was a morale booster for the army and now they have discovered their capabilities (Just a Coincidence both the person questioning the action and chest thumping are IIT alumni) . But we should take a moment and bask in the fact that we did take some action which may not be the first one but nevertheless path breaking because we dared to claim up the credit for the same without the fear of repurcussion.

Once the political leaders bought the whole action into question the media swung into action of declaring patriots and anti-nationals and TV debate revolved just around these 2 narratives. ON the one hand we had the jingoistic Arnab Goswami and on the other hand we had the liberal brigade led by Barkha Dutt, Rajdeep Sardesai and their elk. The liberals cleverly put the shroud of opposition politicians led by the AAP to take potshots at the army while the Govt and their supporters led to a social media campaign where Barkha Dutt wass targeted relentlessly by stating things like Barkha Dutt gave away Indian positions during Kargil war which benefited the enemy troops. I found the accusations against Barkha Dutt to be funny because Army wouldn't allow anyone near the operational area no matter what which the bhakts missed out. Barkha Dutt anyways got her name tarnished when she figured in the Radia tapes which despite her claiming to be innocent doesn't do much for her image. If she and her ilk continue to question Narendra Modi about the Gujarat riots despite nothing being proved in court just like her case. So this hypocrisy in media should stop .Anyways I digress from my point.

So one narrative started as if we question the govt of the day we are anti-national. This narrative is so much flawed because criticism is the only thing which keeps the democracy in check and prevents dictators to take hold. There is a very thin line separating being decisive and being a dictator. Even during the Sino-India war in 1962 parliament was convened and the opposition led by Shri Atal Behari Vajpayee tore into the Nehru Govt. and despite severe criticism in the midst of the war the govt. never censured the media or parry around the term anti-national like it is being done nowadays. But again the criticism has also been about the govt of the day claiming credit which is frankly not wrong. The Armed Forces of India is firmly under the control of the civilian Govt. and without an explicit go ahead from the Govt in power they wouldn't carry out any strikes. So the govt. has to be applauded for being decisive and calling the nuclear bluff of Pakistan. Even Indira Gandhi was termed as Durga after the 1971 Indo-Pak war which resulted in liberation of Bangladesh.

Also another way of claiming patriotism is making the Pakistani artists in India to condemn the URI attacks and make statement against their own Govt. Also there was a call for boycott of Indian Artistes. I have a problem with this narrative and demand on two levels. Firstly when we ask the Pakistani artists to condemn the URI attack, we are asking them to make statement against their own country and Govt. Someone might ask yes what's wrong in that but we forget despite eartheir living in India they have their families back in Pakistan . Would the Indian Govt bring them all over to India and resettle them or guarantee their security? The Pakistani Govt can condemn attacks perpertrated by ISIS or Taliban because that  doesn't threaten their families in any way as the Pakistani Govt is also against them but when they condemn URI attack which has a significant Pakistani hand ,they would be opening up their families to risks which might not be worth the criticism. Also if the the Pakistani artistes need to be banned it should be done by the Govt of India and not by directors or producers because as a businessmen they would recruit artists who would give maximum returns and expecting them to be patriotic and fire all Pakistani artistes is wrong. They are being patriotic in their own way by generating revenues for the Indian economy and just not filling their own pockets.

And now to both Bhakts and liberals of our country ,I put up a question? Did any of you ever question why does the army chief is paid less than the civil servants like the cabinet secretary? Did you ever ask the question why do our soldiers in border areas and the terrorist areas are paid less hazard pay than an IAS officer in a Naxal or dacoit infested area? Does anybody care what the One Rank One Pension Scheme which the armed Forces veterans were fighting for was really about? Did the so-called patriots and the anti-nationals who can protest against the jessica lal murder case or building a 1800 cr flyover in bangalore decided to show solidarity with the issues of armed forces personnel? Its very easy for a Arnab Goswami to sit in the studio and call for war because now he has govt security too but the soldier will take the bullets and not him. The soldiers who dies in URI or Pampore is not only due to terrorism but also due to the apathy of our public and politicians. The media which talks about nationalism also forgets to cover the North-east where a athlete has to return a expensive car received as a prize due to bad roads. The media fails to chronicle the problems and lack of development in the Northeast. The same media gives prime time to Sheena bora murder case which I presume what the Patriotic Indian cares for. The same media also forgets to note while the olympic medallists are getting prizes and felicitated while the Paralympic medallists are simply ignored and have hardly got any prizes. This is my new India and the definition of Nationalism. Be loud, be heard and nothing else matters.

Adios

The media wars...The so called pseudo liberals and the so called ultra nationalists

I have been waking upto news articles about the Kashmir issue and how our media has responded to it. One one end of the spectrum is the Times now, 9x , zee news among others which have become the face of nationalism. The news peddled by them has been pretty much ultra nationalistic bordering on extreme right i.e loud , brash and trying to portray everything as lack and white with no scope for grey areas. While this would have been nice if we had been in a war where there is no scope for being grey because you are actually fighting for the country. And then one day a fine oxford educated gentleman decides to call out all the pseudo liberals and anti-national elements and without naming them calls them to be prosecuted and media's freedom be gagged. Well to say the least, he didn't realised when govt starts gagging the media they will do do with impunity and even he won't be able to escape the same but then he is the Arnab Goswami.

Then came the repartee from none other than the flag bearer of the pseudo liberals, Ms Barkha Dutt. She went all out blasting Arnab for his diatribe against the liberal media at large.She also went the same way as Arnab Goswami trying to instill fear into the minds of people by saying India should be scared and Arnab doesn't scare her. Well Now step back for a second and imagine what she actually said. That people have to be now scared of journalist is it? Hell no Yes they play a very important role in shaping people's opinion but in no way we are that immature that we will get carried away by some loudmouths on TV extorting us to rise up against the anti-nationals. Barkha dear you are on the wrong side and you just gave a stick to everyone to beat you up with. Is she right? well partly but her approach was wrong.

The problem here is the media has divided itself so sharply that they fail to notice that they have become politicians themselves. They are cat-calling and abusing each other but fail to understand that in any democracy there will be contradicting views and that's a sign of good democracy. Just because the media at different spectrum of the political sides essentially doesn't mean one has to be wrong. And yes reporters like Barkha Dutt or Vir Singvi haven't exactly covered themselves in glory by being involved in facilitating political deals which no matter how much they deny. They were caught and they were not adequately held accountable for the same.

Secondly why this debaye came about , we need to understand that. It is the kashmir issue which started with the killing of terrorist Burhan wani and the narrative slowly changed to use of pellet guns on people and how differently they have been treated by the govt .The narrative was if there is a a protest in Any other part of India there would be less use of force while in Kashmir they are being shot, lathicharged ,blinded by pellet guns and what not while In Delhi well water cannons and maybe lathi charge is used. Just to debunk this particular narrative I would say it depends on the threat perception by the security forces . As a case in point we just need to revisit the mathura 2016 riots sparked by the Swadhin Bharat Vidhik Satyagrah group whole they were being evicted. People did get killed and the police shot at the protesters.  So now that theory is debunked so yes the security forces have been guilty of using excessive forces at times but their fears aren't unfounded since they are the people who have faced bombs, bullets and stones from the protestors. 

Now the third point I want to make is is Kasmir problem a home made phenomena? Well the answer isn't as straightforward as Mr Goswami would like us to believe. THe thing is it's not possible to get protesters no matter who finances and supports the movement if there is no local support. Yes the things are planned across the border but there is a underlying simmering discintent which gets lighted every time somebody triggers it. And another thing that we need to observe is these kashmiri protests are pretty much limited to urban areas as compared to the rural areas. It's the educated youth and the older separatists who are driving the movement and of course they are getting support from a third party. let ot be moral support or, weapons or other stuff. So the problem isn't simple as merely stopping the funding flow from across the border but winning over the people which has been the biggest failure of our country's political system. 

So in this war between the ultra right and ultra left the lines between politicians and journalists has completely blurred. It has become ugly and the youth of our nation have become so polarised by the media coverage its more like if you are against us we will brand you as a anti-national or something else. And i can safely say our democracy is pretty mature that when the elections come they won't care who is anti-national or leftist or anything. They will give vote to the party which promises them food three times a day, an ability to have a house and living safely.

The burning Kahmir...The lost paradise!!!!!

Kashmir has been burning literally. This time it's the killing of the terrorist Burhan Wani. I am saddened by the loss of a 22 year old but at the same time happy that an enemy of the state has been eliminated. Media has been full of news and the protests have killed around 30 people till now. The media has been guilty to say the least of stoking fires. Be it the right, left or the center everybody's statements were highlighted and people were branded either patriots or traitors. A part of media helped create a larger than life persona of the slain soul while the other part which is trying to demonize the same person and thereby aiding the earlier narrative of the media sympathetic to the dead man.

But the question is the problem so simple that we can view it through a glass of black and white with no grey areas? As the discourse goes it's not that simple. This is a problem being brewed for the last 65 years or so. Yes its wrong to romanticize him but at the same time giving him the coverage disproportionate to his stature actually elevated him to the headlines that he never dreamt of while being alive. The armed forces have done a brilliant job but at the same time all the chest thumping not necessarily by them but the online trolls and the supporters have made things worse. A sign of a winner is that he is acknowledged even by the loser. Here the Indian state is the loser as the alienation of Kashmir continues. Some parts of the media have been quick to term the killing as extra-judicial. I agree that media has every right to claim to question the circumstances of the killing but what pains me is that the same people aren't uttering a single word that a mob killed a policeman on duty by pushing his car into a flowing river, I have just one question that why the media fails to report the stories where the armed forces despite being provoked and pelted with stones show immense restraint when dealing with such mobs? Whenever the armed forces do something and may it be legal or illegal media is ready to jump into the discussion and question the motives. The same media fails to aptly highlight the atrocities being carried out by the militants or doesn't talk about the human rights abuses being carried out by the so called freedom fighters? Doesn't the armed force personnel of our country have no rights? They also leave their families and go out everyday to their duty and pray to god that they do come back in one piece after a day's work?

I have friends who see the whole problem as a religious thing and the driving away of the Kashmiri pandits from the valley reinforces the divide along the religious lines . We have to admit that yes religion has a major role in this conflict and some bridges had been burnt by communities. While one claims the right to revenge the other claims years of oppression as the reason. Who is right is hard to justify but why is it that harmony can't prevail scares me. religion was never meant to divide people . It was always supposed to be a pillar , a support where a person could seek solace in times of happiness as well as strife. It was never meant to be a battle where "my religion is better than yours". Let the religious debates stop because its hurting us. Just to end this with a quote i read somewhere " The man and God met each other in heaven and both exclaimed Finally I met my creator"

The war between left-liberals and the right liberals

The JNU case erupted on the national imagination like no other. Some video clips came out of the campus showing students slogans like ' Bharat ki Barbaadi', 'Hindustan Murdabad', 'afzal hum tumhare saath hai' and what not. A certain news channel anchor who claims to speak for the nation (Well its apparently what he wants to say) played the clips on and on and branded the students worse than terrorists. To be frank after watching the videos I was also sad but not to the extent of branding them 'Anti-national'. This started off the next big battle between the so-called left leaning liberals and the right-leaning liberals (Nobody wanted themselves to be termed extremists). This set up the stage for the next phase of the war and the battlefield was the social media.

Before I start commenting on the war I would like to say one thing about the protesting students. They organizers might not have shouted the anti-india slogans or the pro-Afzal slogans. They might be against the death sentence . But they should have admitted that 'lionising Afzal Guru' who got a more than fair trial in the Indian courts and tried avoiding the death sentence by exploring all avenues of the judicial process was wrong. In the process they set out with no/incomplete knowledge about the whole issue to question the judiciary . They failed to recognize if our judiciary had been biased the trial wouldn't have lasted for 10 years. Anyways the students could have admitted that some fringe elements in the crowds did shout slogans which wasn't the objective of the protests and apologized. But young blood seldom sees any reason when they think they are right and all reason went to the bin and they jumped right up to again defend Afzal Guru. So as innocent they might have been they just lost the whole perception battle just here and a situation which could have been controlled just continued spiraling out of control.

Now comes the offensive launched by the 'right-liberal' crowd.Some of the nationalist guardians decided the law of the land isn't good enough and tried beating up the arrested student leaders and some journalists. This didn't happen once but twice. The lawyer who led the mob was felicitated and this incident brought a divide in the narrative. Earlier when about most of the people who had spoke up against the students started having their doubts and deserted the right-liberal camp. These were the very people who change their votes in every election hoping for a better India but who are ducated enough to have a view of their own. The 'left-liberals' got hold of this opportunity and took no time to brand the 'right-liberals' anti-national and claimed a threat to freedom itself. And this set up the battleground for the next phase.

We are now in the third phase of the saga where both the groups have dug into trenches and bombarding each other with claims and counter-claims. In the process many friendships turned sour, many people whom we deemed as good turned out to be far more abrasive than ever imagined. People started calling each other names and both the groups became the vanguards of freedom & nationalism in their own perceived ways. In this din many journalists on either side of the debate started writing open letters to 'god knows who'. These people who couldn't talk to each other now used the social media to voice their disapproval  using snide remarks in these letters. None of them were brave enough to call each other by name so that tells us how brave they are.

In all this din everyone forgot what was the reason we were arguing for? It's not a war in the first place . The branding by both groups was bad enough but they failed to realize our democracy which prides itself in freedom of speech was being abused by both the groups when the name calling started. Freedom means the ability to voice the opinion without the fear of being branded 'anti-national'.In a mature democracy both the voices can and should co-exist but minus the the high-voltage bitterness because I believe both the sides want the country to be great just by following different methods. But what did we do with our freedom? Well we call each other names, abuse each other and at times make a lynch mob and beat up the opposite view holders. And our media the so-called fourth pillar of democracy has to be blamed equally for the situation.

Reporters suddenly became opinion makers and started presenting opinions reaching millions of apeople when their job was to present the news in a objective manner and let the public make their opinions. Suddenly the reporters were stars because people found someone to make opinions for them and the shrillest and the loudest were made heroes because the public was also frustrated with the system but never found a voice which echoed their sentiments so strongly. We felt the louder the voice more clear is the signal to the government that we are not mute spectators. But we the public forgot heroes are not gods and every word they say is not the gospel of truth. None of the media houses in India can claim to be unbiased. Times now till a few days back was the darling of the crowd because it asked uncomfortable questions to the govt, never mind we never got the answers. Other channels tried following the same pattern but they couldn't match up to Arnab Goswami. I don't believe he is pro-govt but what he created was the lynch mob mentality and what he deems right is the holy grail. Other channels woke up to the threat and in a way to reclaim lost ground tried to unite against him and other pro-govt media houses but they forgot one important thing. They themselves were biased which led to the rise of Arnab goswami because he came as a whiff of fresh air to the Indian public.

I have written quite a lot most of the stuff is unstructured but that is the state of my mind with all the chaos going around. I have been branded anti-national many times by the right-liberals but so far have managed to keep the bitterness out from my narratives. So the key takeaways would be:

1. The media needs to clean up its act and start 'Reporting news ' and not 'Opinions'
2. The students need to apologize simply to gain the higher moral ground. Students would be forgiven as I am sure many of us in our youth would have done things not worthy of mentions. 
3. The Universities should lay down guidelines on speech making as I believe a educational institution is no place for political battles.
4. The govt needs to look at the archaic sedition law and debate in parliament if it needs to even exist. And get to work if you work every dissenting voice will die down if we get even half of the things promised
5. And lastly real work needs no advertisement. If the economy is doing well we will vote for the same party again because we will be well off. No matter how much fake/real facts are put out in the social media it wouldn't work but only help in polarizing opinions.

This is not the last word and many more blog posts might come-up now that the situation is evolving rapidly.