A Response To Sagarika Ghose’s Riders On The Storm

I seldom write counter posts on someone’s views. In fact no one can have a counter view even. For all that one can say, yours could be just another view but counter? Well it is one of those mumbo – jumbos which few people having full time job of hopping from one news studio to another; mention as part of their panel discussions to sound intelligent but can one really have a counter view? Hence my attempt with this post shouldn’t anyway be treated as a counter view to what Sagarika Ghose posted under the title “Riders On TheStorm”. As I told earlier, it is just another view at ridiculing what she has to say about Gujarat and the Gujarat Muslims. And yes, about Narendra Modi also.

First of all, I don’t understand the semantics in coming up with such a name for the post. Who riding the storm and where and most important how? Anyway, the introductory line that this lady thought of writing pretty much settles the nature of the post that one can expect to follow. Yes, completely biased with no clue on what she wanted to convey other than showcasing some nasty agenda which best suits the psyche of people like her and in a way corroborates the new found phenomena that the nation is witnessing of late, by the name pseudo secularism.

Muslims are seeking a new narrative in Gujarat beyond victimhood

Victimhood? How? Kind of lines which looks like been brought into the context from nowhere and for no reason. The lady feels, it is the Muslims who are, were and will always remain victims in Gujarat for reasons even she can’t point one. It seems she feels the Muslims have the right by default to play the victim card perpetually; even for their own crimes. Though I was expecting at least at one point throughout the post she would elaborate on why exactly she feels the Muslims of Gujarat are victims, she never did that for obvious reasons. Because she doesn’t have a reason to begin with. How moronic it could be when without reasons one goes ahead and pronounce a section as victims that in a way suggest the other side is the oppressor. I object to this pontification of facts since I first saw innocent blood been spilled nonchalantly on the platform of Godhra. And the perpetrators are still called victims? Then who is the culprit? Innocents including small kids those were charred alive? If unpretentious logic of the lady has gone haywire, then she might very well find Osama Bin Laden a victim as well. How hopeless this line could be but I still hope she finds Sikhs are also victims when it comes to the state of Delhi.

The gaffe just doesn’t stops at the first line itself. She goes on in producing marvels after marvels which are nothing but lies and deception of facts at best. Remember my last post – If you are an idiot, you shouldn’t open your mind and let the world know about it. So read on –

Mercantile, entrepreneurial and aspirational Gujarati have created India's first perpetually red republican state where the majority sentiment is culturally conservative and economically right wing, no matter what the exact party complexion of the ruling regime.

Red republican state? Not sure if the lady got highly impressed with Tim Russert but equating even by literary point of view; Gujarat with say Milwaukie is kind of bizarre. Anyway, this is not the concern. The line might very well look harmless at the first glance but does it that required to pop up the right wing nonsense here as well? Though I am not sure who decides which one is the left wing and which one is the right; but media morons went ahead branding the Hindu centric organizations as the so called right wing fanatics. So when she says Gujarati are economically right wing, I could really see the intent in branding the entire Gujarati business community as fanatics by her own yardstick. And which religion constitutes the majority of the Gujarati business community? Yes, Hindus who could easily be trademarked as fanatics for just being from that religion but people who routinely blow their ass in public places to kill innocents are victims.

Quantification at the time of need is justified but quantifying always as if the sheer lesser number is an automatic symbol of suppression is little too much. By that logic even the handful of IIT grads should be considered a suppressed lot amongst the rest 25 lakh engineers that we produce every year?

But within this largely Hindu state with a Hindu consensus, there is a silent invisible transformation. At 9 per cent of the population, Muslims remain politically irrelevant. The BJP hasn't given a single ticket to Muslims in this election yet again.

Do you see logic in this line? Well I don’t but I see a lot of agenda though. “Largely Hindu state with Hindu consensus” – want to ask if the lady finds any state, barring few northeast ones, in India which are not largely Hindu states. So what are the specifics that are so unique to the percentage of Hindus or Muslims in Gujarat that bothers her so much? And Hindu consensus? What is a Hindu consensus by the way? When she says there is a slight change of transformation in this Hindu consensus state, I wonder what kind of transformation she is talking about. Is it for good or bad? Any whichever way it may be, but her intent in maligning Hindus for the sake of it is well understood. If the transformation is good, then it means the so called Hindu consensus was bad initially, which predominantly was anti-Muslim. If the transformation is getting bad, it suggests the Hindus were never good towards the so called Victim Muslims at the first place; rather it has gone worse now since Narendra Modi is in power.

Any religion attaining political irrelevance is a dangerous precedence for our democracy, not just Muslims. When she says 9 percent of population, I fail to understand what she wants us to infer. Is it that Muslims are irrelevant in Gujarat after being good 9% of the population or Muslims are irrelevant because they are just 9%? Again in either way, this is a bloody number game she should have stayed away from. In both the scenarios it suggests, the Modi government is intentionally keeping the Muslim community irrelevant with respect to state politics. And I believe she wanted to sell that exact nefarious conclusion once I read through the line that follows. The reason she arrived at such a conclusion is, because BJP has not offered any tickets to Muslims for this edition of Gujarat election. Someone badly needs to educate her that more than the contestants it is the voters who play a bigger role in democracy. Has that been snatched away from the Muslims of Gujarat? So where the question of political irrelevance arises here? If we take her line, only if Modi has given tickets to the Muslims then it would have made some sense and since that didn’t happened, Modi has automatically driven a community to oblivion politically. If one gets serious with this line, Modi might very well have to rethink about his political policies. That said, a quick question – why only Muslims? Modi should have distributed few tickets to Jains, Christians and Sikhs as well. Those communities also deserve to remain politically relevant as per Sagarika’s logic. Don’t they?

Even if we take her absurdity for a second, still the logic looks bizarre and divisive. Does she mean Muslims shouldn’t be represented by non-Muslims? Or even vice-a-versa? By suggesting (Ok, indirectly) only Muslims to represent Muslims; she only is widening the vacuum between the communities of the state. Aren’t we in India represented by a prime-minister from a community which might not be even 9% of our nation’s population? How thoughtless one could be to even think of blasting Modi for such a laughable reason. This is nothing but plain gimmickry from someone, who now I believe is quite undeservingly grabbing the post of assistant editor of a premiere news channel of India.

This civic and judicial activism has not only prevented any large scale Muslim alienation from the system after the riots but also created a renewed sense of engagement. There are many young Muslim lawyers fighting riot cases, confident that the courts will be fair. The Modi government loves to pour scorn on "biased" NGOs and media for continually harping on riots, but the fact is, it is precisely because of the outreach by civil society, that to a large extent, communal tensions have been lowered.

So Modi has done nothing to ensure the non-occurrence of any riots for last decade? It is only the civic and judiciary that has done the magic. So why the same civic and judiciary doesn’t repeat the miracle in other states of India? Say for UP, where there are at least half a dozen religious violence in as many months. Or the Congress ruled Assam where migrants ended up killing our own people. Are these states out of bounds for our judiciary and social genius like Teesta Shetelvad? This is nothing but yet again one of those attempts at undermining Modi’s efforts in bringing harmony among the sections of the society by diverting them towards profitable engagements in the form of jobs, business and opportunities. For her, the upsurge in employment opportunities hasn’t helped the youth of the state to look beyond religious hatred but the SIT and continuous howling of madam Teesta has. Well she hasn’t forgotten to pat her own and many paid entities like her for this sojourn of hate since they fought tirelessly for harmony, even after been scorned as biased. Uffs, great nationalism I must say.  

In 2002, the riots brought a majority of 127 seats; in 2007 Modi invoked the Sohrabuddin case to consolidate his image as protector of Hindus and won 117 seats. Today he may have made references to "Miyan" Ahmed Patel to try and neutralize hard line Hindu outrage at his Sadbhavna mission or outreach to minorities and reassure his core Hindu voters.

What would you say about this line? Could there be a bigger party than Congress who invariably always fight elections on religious and caste lines? But hell, we are been paid hefty by them to cover their sins, not to unearth them. So let’s ridicule Modi, even for his nonexistent religious ideologies. According to the genius it is the 2002 riots that swung the mandate in favor of Modi; not his governance and accountability post the riots? Could we also imply the same logic to Rajiv’s empathetic win post Sikh massacre of 1984? How gullible this is for the lady to name Sohrabuddin as something which won Modi the 2007 election is clear from the fact that, it is the media which blown the issue out of proportion and projected a criminal as a hero in a view that it might just eat into Modi’s votes. If she is so sad because Modi won 2007 she should first blame herself and many others in the fourth estate for making a useless instance like Shorabuddin as a talking point. Hindu poster boy? For records, Modi never called himself as one. Nor even BJP or RSS. It is the media which has made him that and now repenting since it has boomeranged, rather hampering him. So get the logic right lady. If one person like Shorabuddin could make you win state elections then Rahul Gandhi would have concurred UP earlier this year. And by the way, aren’t such blatant claims making the Gujarati voters look utterly fool? As if they don’t have their own wisdom and depend heavily upon entities like Shorabuddin to take their decisions?

However Juhapura also resembles a Gujarati Gaza Strip, a designated area for Muslims, a place where they can build and flourish, but not venture beyond. Modi has not visited Juhapura even once as chief minister.

Again an absurd comparison. Gaza Strip? Seriously? We don’t have state sponsored battle tanks roaming on the streets there. She knows it but the comparison is somewhat habitual as otherwise it is nearly difficult to project Narendra Modi as a demon. I am not sure of her claims but does it sound believable that Muslims can’t just venture out of Juhapura? Even if they can’t or they don’t want to; what the chief minister is supposed to do? The self-alienation could be because of many factors, not just fear. Does she expect Modi to drive in with a Bus and drive them back to other parts of the city personally? So why not Rahul Gandhi doing the same and pack all those exiled Kashmiri Pundits back to Srinagar? And please someone enlighten me, how the CM not visiting a place amounts to neglect? And that too an intentional one at that. Dr. Manmohan Singh hasn’t visited, even once to the locality that I stay either. Should I accuse Congress and Dr. Singh of discrimination?

All in all I wonder who in earth possibly entertains such incompetent individuals on important posts. How come someone who can barely name all the states in one attempt happens to be the assistant editor? Aren’t their better chaps in CNN-IBN to take her place? For good? If that is not good enough, people with her level of IQ, not only are venturing into the wild of politics but start questioning seasoned politicians like Narendra Modi. Guess the definition of competency has changed for CNN-IBN and many alike. Now it is not what your caliber is but how big a Rudali you are for the Muslims and how ferocious you are in bashing Modi with all the absurd logics. In both these parameters Sagarika Ghose emerges as the winner though Barkha Dutt is giving a real run for her money.