14th Intl Film Festival of Kerala

a version of this was published by rediff.com at http://movies.rediff.com/report/2009/dec/16/international-film-festival-of-kerala-2009-opens.htm

here is the website of the festival: http://iffk.in/index.php?page=movies

International Film Festival of Kerala 2009: Days 1, 2 and 3

Rajeev Srinivasan samples the fare at the IFFK’s 14^th edition

It apparently has become a staple of the season in Trivandrum – a little winter fog, a much-hyped Grand Kerala Shopping Festival (as though the wall-to-wall, year-round ads on TV for gold and womens’ clothes were not enough), large numbers of black-clad Ayyappa pilgrims, and now armies of cineastes armed with the signature black bags of the International Film Festival. This year I too joined the quasi-pilgrimage to my own home-town, and so far I have been pleasantly surprised by the festival’s logistics and films.

Roses in November: in search of Dharma

This was published at http://news.rediff.com/column/2009/nov/11/rajeev-srinivasan-on-the-struggle-for-dharma.htm

Roses in November: In search of righteousness

Rajeev Srinivasan on why Dharma underlies every act in India

After all the festivities of Navaratri and Deepavali, November arrives with several anniversaries of some significance. These are, in one way or the other, related to the idea of Dharma, and thus closely entwined with the very basis of Indian civilization. As metaphors, they are a good counterpoint to the slaying of the buffalo-demon by the Goddess – an icon that goes back to Indus-Sarasvati times. Clearly, the struggle for Dharma is never wholly won.

Can EVMs subvert elections? full post

Reposting on wanderlust’s suggestion. The full text is appended below, and here is a link to where the pdf can be downloaded from: http://rajeev.posterous.com/can-electronic-voting-machines-subvert-electi

This was a survey as of Jun 20th, and subsequent revelations have been explosive: someone actually has demonstrated a Trojan Horse as described here, on Jul 3rd. There is virtually no doubt that EVMs can be mucked with. Whether they were mucked with is the subject of further research.

Happy American Independence Day, indeed

Can Electronic Voting Machines subvert elections?

By Rajeev Srinivasan[1]

“The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by which all other rights are protected. To take away this right is to reduce a man to slavery.” – Thomas Paine, Dissertation on First Principles of Government, 1795

“Those who cast the votes decide nothing, those who count the votes decide everything”

“The first stage of fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merge of State and corporate power” – Benito Mussolini

1. Abstract

Are India’s election results an accurate reflection of the will of the people? Or is it possible that the Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) that are deployed in large numbers in India’s elections can be manipulated to subvert the voters’ intent? If that is the case, it would be a serious matter, because that would reduce India’s democracy, of which most Indians are so proud, to a charade. In this essay, we consider the ways in which EVMs could have been used to defraud the Indian voter in 2009. We emphasize that this essay is only about the possibility of fraud; it is beyond the scope of this note and will take further analysis and research to demonstrate actual fraud, if such existed.

Can EVMs subvert democracy?

To appear in ‘Eternal India: A New Perspectives Monthly’. Will post the full article when it is published.

Can Electronic Voting Machines subvert elections?

By Rajeev Srinivasan

“The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by which all other rights are protected. To take away this right is to reduce a man to slavery.” – Thomas Paine, Dissertation on First Principles of Government, 1795

“Those who cast the votes decide nothing, those who count the votes decide everything” – Joseph Stalin

“The first stage of fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merge of State and corporate power” – Benito Mussolini

1. Abstract

Are India’s election results an accurate reflection of the will of the people? Or is it possible that the Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) that are deployed in large numbers in India’s elections can be manipulated to subvert the voters’ intent? If that is the case, it would be a serious matter, because that would reduce India’s democracy, of which most Indians are so proud, to a charade. In this essay, we consider the ways in which EVMs could have been used to defraud the Indian voter in 2009. We emphasize that this essay is only about the possibility of fraud; it is beyond the scope of this note and will take further analysis and research to demonstrate actual fraud, if such existed.

1. Introduction

A number of elections around the world have been condemned for various levels of fraud, misdemeanor and felony over the years. Undoubtedly, some of the criticism is well-deserved (for instance, the routine instances of 100% voter turnout in certain totalitarian countries). In some cases, it appears elections were “stolen” though manipulation of the vote tally, thus, in effect, perverting the “will of the people”, that cornerstone of a genuine democratic, republican regime.

… deleted

The center cannot hold

To appear on rediff.com. When it is published i will provide the full text:

The center cannot hold

The incidents in Lalgarh, West Bengal, have clarified that the writ of the Government of India does not hold sway in certain parts of the country. There is the dismissive story of how the last Mughal Emperor was sovereign of only a few square miles in Delhi by 1803, while the rest of the country was ruled by others. In all fairness, the Central Government today does control more territory than did Bahadur Shah.

… deleted

Beware of another oil shock

This was published in mint.com on Jun 26th:

http://www.livemint.com/2009/06/25215141/Beware-of-another-oil-shock.html

After hitting a low around $32 last December, the price of a barrel of oil has risen to the $70+ range. While the net effect of this will lead to renewed inflation and hit our wallets, what is the medium-term outlook for oil? All predictions are risky, but it is likely that prices will go right back up into the $100 range,  resulting in many  attendant problems for the world economy.

If you look at the really big picture, global energy futures are complex. On the one hand, the world probably will not run out of oil (and oil-like substances, including shale, tar sands, liquefied natural gas, liquefied coal, etc.) in the immediate future. Besides, according to the fundamental laws of physics, there is plenty of energy available in the current known reserves of various sources.

Research by Harvard University  suggests, for instance, that the world’s conventional oil and gas alone contains 1,000 terawatt-years worth of energy; coal has another 5,000; the amount of solar energy falling on the earth every year is another 30,000; and our total current use worldwide is only 15 terawatt-years per year. The trick, of course, is in converting this potential into actual available energy.

On the other hand, there is increasing concern about greenhouse gas emissions and global warming.

As a result of conservation and greater efficiency, it is possible that energy demand growth may decline. Nevertheless, conventional energy sources will continue to predominate and renewables will not be a major factor even in twenty years’ time.

For instance, the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) International Energy Agency, in its World Energy Outlook 2008, sees “more of the same: a vision of a laisser-faire fossil-energy future.” It considers a reference scenario, which suggests that world energy usage will grow from 11,730 million tons of oil equivalent (mtoe) to 17,010 mtoe in 2030, an increase of 45%.

An immediate implication of this reference scenario is that oil prices will rise again. The recent volatility of oil prices was unexpected (from $147 last July to $32). Oil prices plunged as the result of a recession-induced collapse in worldwide demand for goods, and thus for trade and shipping.  But with oil plumbing new lows, many people went back to their profligate use of energy. The lessons of the last oil shock were not internalized, demand simply rose again.

Furthermore, it is quite clear that the producing countries have great incentives to ensure a much higher “normal” or “base” price, because they have become addicted to the windfall transfer of trillions of dollars to them, courtesy high prices. The breakeven prices required by members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), according to the Wall Street Journal Asia, are as follows: Iran $90, Bahrain $75, Oman $77, Saudi Arabia $49, Kuwait $33, Qatar $24, UAE $23.

While the actual cost at the well-head of oil may be lower (some experts say that it costs Saudi Arabia $1-$2 a barrel to dig oil out of the ground), the budgetary price that OPEC countries live by is much higher, and they will not be able to sustain their spending below a certain minimum price. Thus OPEC will observe production quotas until the desired pricing level is reached.

Observers such as the IEA suggest that the “natural” price of oil is around $85-$100 (in 2009 dollar terms), and that prices will reach this equilibrium level in the near future. The extreme volatility in prices, according to them, is acting as an inhibitor to investment in OPEC countries, and therefore most likely will lead to supply reductions in the long-run, as existing oil wells get exhausted.

They argue that the era of peak-oil has not arrived, contrary to Cassandra-like predictions (called “Hubbard’s Peak”). OPEC dismisses these concerns by saying “Resources are plentiful”. Oil company officials suggest that new oil supplies will continue to come online. Therefore, they do not see a fundamental constraint to oil availability from the supply side, although actual future capacity to deliver may be affected in future by failure to make investments today.

The world is not running short of oil or gas just yet, they say, and there is no oil bust. Incidentally, experts concur that OPEC members will dominate supply, and that non-OPEC (such as Russian) oil will have limited impact.

There is still a significant amount of recoverable oil, including extra-heavy oil, oil sands and oil shale, although the cost of recovery and of downstream products may be high. However, field-by-field declines in oil production are accelerating and barriers to upstream investment could constrain global supply. This is one of the arguments made about the ultimately harmful effects of oil prices being “too low”: major projects are being cancelled or put on hold.

Thus, barring some extraordinary breakthroughs in renewables, oil prices will go right back up to the $100 range soon as soon as demand recovers. We had better be prepared for more sticker-shock.

Swine flu: Policies behind pandemics

Published on mint on 5/26/09:

http://www.livemint.com/2009/05/26210249/Policies-behind-pandemics.html

It appears that the swine flu pandemic has been averted for the moment due to some quick thinking and action. The tenor of news reports has changed from panic to the smug feeling that it is under control. The World Health Organization and the American Centers for Disease Control probably deserve kudos for helping contain the problem. But as with previous episodes of disease, it may well recur: the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and avian flu have appeared more than once, as have Ebola and Legionnaire’s disease.

After the counting and other stories

Published on Rediff on May 17th

http://election.rediff.com/column/2009/may/17/loksabhapoll-after-the-counting-and-other-stories.htm

The great fabulist O V Vijayan had a collection of short stories – and some of the best were based on the Emergency — titled “After the hanging and other stories”. I could stretch the point and suggest that democracy was hanged in India, but perhaps that is too dramatic. Democracy was already a walking wounded in India. It had been a zombie for years, with paraphernalia such as elaborate elections, but it is merely form, not substance. What passes for a democracy in India is make-believe. It is, to paraphrase that old racist Churchill, about as real as the equator.

Nevertheless, it is a little sad to see a people committing collective suicide. For, this year’s election is a point of inflexion, coming as it does at a point when the unipolar world of the recent past is clearly unraveling. There is a power vacuum, as the dominant power of the previous century, the United States, is clearly suffering from imperial over-reach. Much as other imperial powers have done in the past, America is also realizing that there are limits to its power to compel others.

Since nature abhors a vacuum, a new power is stepping into it: China. They have amassed, as is well known, a war chest of $2 trillion. They are making noises about replacing the US dollar as the reserve currency, and economist Nouriel Roubini (known as ‘Dr. Doom’ for his Cassandra-like warnings about the economic crisis) wrote in the New York Times about the ‘almighty renminbi’ possibly replacing the almighty dollar.

This was India’s chance to also make it to the top, but of course it won’t with the UPA at the helm. The UPA and its coterie of leftists have a congenital inferiority complex, and they simply cannot imagine that India in fact has the potential to be one of the poles in a multi-polar world. Their imaginations have been stunted by all the dogma of non-alignment they have mouthed for decades – and they can only imagine being a pawn and a supplicant to some superior power.

The fact is that an unfettered India which defends its interests had a very good chance of being not only one among the top ten global powers in its economic, military and innovation capability. India, if it played its cards right, would have had a non-trivial chance of being Number One, the biggest power in the world. If the intrusive Indian government did not interfere, the native genius of Indians would naturally enable the nation to flourish, as was demonstrated in sector after sector after 1991. Indians have thrived despite the government, not because of it.

The problem the Americans face is that, despite their vast continental resources, they are a waning power, as they reached the zenith of their empire in the 1950s and 1960s, and it has been downhill ever since, except for a brief moment when they became the sole hyperpower. The Chinese, on their part, have tremendous problems because, despite the acknowledged entrepreneurial capacities of its citizens, Chinese history shows that it can only do well when there is a strong imperial government. Eventually, the Communist dictatorship will collapse.

India would have had a chance, but not with the UPA in power. An old gentleman, whom I have no reason to disbelieve, once told me of an incident with a Communist leader in Kerala, who opposed prohibition. In a private conversation, this person questioned the minister about the obvious fact that the consumption of liquor by men was impoverishing their families and preventing them from rising up to the middle class. Whereupon the leader told him, in effect: “We don’t want to end poverty. If there is no poverty, who needs us?” This accurately reflects the UPA’s beliefs as well. Their slogans will have no takers unless there is a large, hopeless underclass.

The UPA has demonstrated that it can only think of India as a vassal state throughout the last five years of craven behavior towards the US (“India loves you, Mr. Bush”, said the PM). The opaque manner in which the nuclear deal was rammed through was preposterous.  India will pay tens of billions of dollars for nuclear fission reactors from the US and its allies, and will go into ‘cap, rollback and eliminate’ mode as it is blackmailed into the NPT, CTBT and FMCT. In the meantime, the Americans are giving billions to the Pakistanis, in effect supporting their new plutonium reactors, as reported by MSNBC on May 15^th (“Pakistan expanding its nuclear capability”) http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30648446/

It would be ironic if the Americans are taking the very same billions coming from India and giving those to the Pakistanis. That would be, as Karl Marx said, history repeating itself as tragedy: British imperialists, it may be remembered, coerced money from Indians to build the infrastructure to oppress Indians.

The energy issue is just one of many in which the UPA has not looked after India’s interests. Consider China – now that energy prices have fallen, the Chinese have locked up long-term contracts for oil and gas by waving their bankroll around, in places like Venezuela, Russia, and Angola. The UPA has done nothing, apparently complacent that Uncle Sam will ride to the rescue with uranium. The UPA couldn’t even get Bangladeshi or Myanmarese gas, which the Chinese snatched up. That is nothing short of criminal.

In fact there are several reasons why the last five years of UPA rule have been disastrous. I am reminded of Ronald Reagan’s famous jibe: “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” Absolutely not, in area after area:

• Economy: because of disastrous populist policies, the budget deficit is around 13-15%, one of the highest in the world. Inflation of up to 12% has permanently pushed up the prices of most essential goods by a factor of 1.5 to 3x, and it will return with a vengeance because of the high deficit
• Foreign Policy: India’s ‘near-abroad’ is a disaster, as India’s sphere of influence has shrunk, and China’s has grown. Nepal is now controlled by friends of China; Sri Lanka is massacring Tamils, and has leased the Hambantota naval base to China; terrorist infiltration via Bangladesh and Nepal continues apace; the Pakistani Taliban are only some 200 kilometers from Delhi
• Security: Terrorists attack Indian cities at will; the invasion of Mumbai has already been forgotten by the UPA, which only has a long memory when certain privileged people are killed
• Corruption and Money-laundering: Gigantic amounts of money appear to be stashed away in numbered Swiss accounts – enough to pay off the national debt; the ill-gotten gains of the Italian Quattrochi have tacitly been given to him. This makes the already corrupt Indian system even worse
• Opaqueness: The UPA lied continuously to the Indian people and Parliament about the details of the nuclear accord, which turns out to be far less attractive than was advertized; the libel, perjury and defamation by certain NGOs about Gujarat have gone completely unpunished; and the huge bags-of-cash-for-votes scandal has been swept under the carpet.

The Indian voter is not stupid, and is exquisitely sensitive to things that affect his wallet. Therefore it is a little surprising that the average voter drank the UPA’s Kool-Aid.

There is, of course, the possibility that the average voter did not in fact fall for the UPA’s charms, and that this election was subject to massive fraud. I am talking about Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs). Having spent many years in the high-tech world, I do not trust computers, especially embedded systems. Researchers in the US have shown how easy it is to break into EVMs, which is why they have not adopted them. They have realized how important it is to have a paper audit trail, hanging chads and all.

It would not be extraordinarily difficult to install a program with a Trojan Horse in it. To outward appearances and to ordinary testing, the program would appear normal. However, when it is fed a sequence of keystrokes by the agent of the party committing the fraud, the Trojan Horse wakes up, and then, regardless of what buttons the voter actually presses, it can assign a certain (non-suspicious-looking) percentage (i.e. not 90% but, say 45%) to the preferred party. The Trojan Horse can even be programmed to quietly delete itself when the voting is over. Nobody would know any better, as there is no paper trail.

Let me emphasize that I do not have any evidence that this happened in 2009, but it is worth investigating. There were too many surprising – almost miraculous – victories by certain candidates whom the casual observer would have written off. By Occam’s razor, the simplest explanation is fraud. I would like to note in passing that in 2004, expecting the NDA to commit fraud, an Indian Communist in the US had prepared a suit alleging EVM fraud. Therefore it is clear that the thought has occurred to various people that there could be EVM fraud.

In any case, the 2009 elections, I repeat, were an inflexion point or a tipping point, which will mark the rapid decline of India. Looking back, historians will identify this election as the precise moment that India as a nation and a civilization began unraveling. It is fairly likely that India would have become a dismembered state by 2025, thus fulfilling a long-felt need in certain hostile quarters – one in which both the Communists and the West see eye to eye – to break up India.

My dilemma with Shashi Tharoor

Posted on rediff on Apr 13th (jallianwallah day):
http://election.rediff.com/column/2009/apr/13/my-dilemma-with-shashi-tharoor.htm

Triage as winning strategy for the BJP

Published on rediff on April 8th

http://election.rediff.com/column/2009/apr/08/-a-winning-strategy-for-the-bjp.htm

The concept of triage first arose in field hospitals, where doctors had to decide what to do with large numbers of war wounded and very limited resources. Over time, they developed an empirical method of optimization, by dividing up incoming patients into three groups: those who were hopeless, those who could wait for attention, and those who could only be saved if they got immediate care.

The medical staff would pursue appropriate methods with each of these groups. The hopeless cases they would give painkillers to, make them comfort, and let them die in peace. Those who were lightly wounded they would give first aid to and prepare them for further care, not immediately, but as soon as feasible. The last group, for whom emergency surgery could mean the difference between life and death, they would prioritize and operate on immediately.

This rough-and-ready method has been proved to be rational, in a utilitarian way – it provides the maximum benefit to the maximum number of people. Many companies have also adapted this principle, because it turns out that there is a natural ordering in rough triads – one third of the people agree with an arguable decision, a third oppose it, and another third can be convinced either way.

Olympic Machismo

Published by the New Indian Express at http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IE720080806012039&Page=7&Title=TheOped&Topic=0

Olympic machismo: The tale the medals tell

Rajeev Srinivasan on the pathetic failure of Indian sports

I am always embarrassed by India’s wretched showing in the Olympics, which is a metaphor for the two things that haunt India – lack of a strategic intent, and lack of leadership. It is not that Indians are physically weak or incapable of competing at Olympic levels: in many sports at the junior level, Indians do very well indeed. The failure is in developing that early promise. This is like that devastating remark about Brazil that it is condemned to always be the country of the future.

One failure is in identifying an overarching goal: that of being the best in the world. This is an implicit assumption made by Americans: that America is the best of the best. Similarly, China has historically viewed itself as the Middle Kingdom and the center of civilization, deeming all others to be barbarians. But Indians have been content to be second-best, the sporting losers. We apparently do not believe we can win.

In India people actually say, and with conviction, “What is important is participating, not winning.” My jaw almost hit the floor the first time someone assured me of this. They ignored my protests that the only thing that counts is winning, good sportsmanship be damned. The Indian contingent genuinely does go to the Olympics to form part of the scenery. I remember On the Waterfront, and failed and betrayed boxer Marlon Brando saying, “I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum”. Indians are happy to be nobodies.

The second failure is in leadership. No political or business leader takes any interest in Olympic sports. For instance, track queen P T Usha’s school, intended to produce Olympians, is struggling for funds. Promising sportspeople have to scrounge for jobs and small stipends so that they can feed themselves and buy the equipment they need.

A Kerala girl who was a member of the national rowing team committed suicide because she simply couldn’t afford to train. Contrast this with the Chinese rowing team. A New York Times story on them showed how the Chinese zeroed in on rowing, which has a lot of medals, to increase their possible medal tally. They paid handsomely to get the world’s best coaches and training facilities, and national team members are genuine heroes.

China is a particularly good example of a certain Olympic machismo and corresponding State patronage. The Chinese are obsessed with demonstrating to the world that they are better than anybody else. In sport after sport, starting with swimming, Chinese athletes have been systematically discovered in childhood through country-wide sporting events, carefully nurtured in sports academies, plied with whatever steroids and hormones they can get away with – and they do get caught sometimes – and turned into world-class athletes with the mental and physical toughness needed to win.

There is no reason why Indians cannot do something like this; undoubtedly, among a billion Indians there are potential champions who are today condemned to be like the “full many a flower [that] is born to blush unseen”. Somehow, promising Indians fade away from lack of… something, perhaps a killer instinct, perhaps self-confidence, perhaps sponsors. I am reminded of what was in tennis dubbed the “ABC powers”: Amritraj, Borg and Connors, all of whom appeared on the scene as youngsters at the same time. Yet Amritraj faded, while the others became champions.

There is a failure in India to encourage fresh blood, and to tell the famous to retire when their time is up. Rusty old war-horses become dogs-in-the-manger, not good enough in a sporting world where youth is at a premium, yet unwilling to yield the limelight. This is exemplified by a track and field athlete who has never been higher than some tenth in the world. Bizarrely, the media and sports establishment lionizes and trots her out as a ‘medal hope’ in all major meets; she regularly manages to be seventh in a field of eight, humiliating herself, yet refusing to bow out gracefully. Do go “gentle into that good night”, please! That also applies to many others past their prime.

There is yet another failure in India, the stranglehold cricket has on the imagination. Billions are spent on cricket, but all other sports starve. Case in point: India’s once-mighty field-hockey team, which once upon a time bestrode the Olympics like a colossus, failed to even qualify this time. India, one-seventh of humanity, will probably win a bronze in shooting – that’s all – in Beijing 2008, but cricket fans are blithely unaware and uncaring. Tragic, isn’t it?

If you step back and look at the big picture, there is a valid question as to whether there is any correlation between a country’s medal tally and its quality of life. Should the ranking of countries be based on total medals or medals per million population? If you choose the latter, according to the Economist, the Athens 2004 list is dominated by the Bahamas, Cuba, Estonia, Slovenia, Jamaica etc. – a motley crew indeed, and not exactly the most desirable places to live in – not the US, Russia, or China. Australia is the only country that shows up in the top 10 under both criteria. Yes, Australia does have a fairly good quality of life.

But the counter-example is regimented Communist States that produce good athletes: who can forget, for instance, the muscular, slightly mustachioed East German or Soviet female athletes of yore? The reasons are clear: they had a pathological obsession with winning, and treated the Olympics as a major prestige issue. It had little to do with quality of life and a lot to do with paranoia and one-up-manship. So yes, it is possible to go to extremes for medals while ignoring ground realities.

Nevertheless, a large Olympic haul does show that a nation can imagine, plan and execute. This has implications for strategy, and indeed, survival. After all, the original Greek Olympics were set up as a bloodless substitute for war. Olympians are our samurai, our alter-egos, fighting on our behalf.

Comments welcome at http://rajeev2007.wordpress.com

999 words

Final Solution

The Final Solution

Rajeev Srinivasan on the all-out assault on Indic ideas

The current violent oppression of Tibetans by the Communist Chinese is only the latest incident in the crime against humanity that has been going on there for fifty-seven years. According to Tibetan activists and human rights workers, at least two thousand Tibetans have been murdered in the incidents in March, with many of them cremated or buried in unmarked graves. The official Chinese numbers of those killed – in the few hundreds – is total eyewash.

The genocide and war crime in Tibet is aimed at completely extinguishing the Tibetan people and culture. It is intended as a Final Solution, much like what the Nazis envisaged for ‘inferior’ peoples like Jews and Gypsies: their total annihilation so that the ‘master race’ (in this case the Han Chinese) can take over their lands and property and culture.

There are also the fifth columnists of the Chinese spewing vitriol and mouthing Xinhua propaganda in the Indian media: the lunatic-fringe editor of a once-proud newspaper is the worst culprit.

This is typical Communist behavior. After all, it is not long since they brutalized and massacred many in Nandigram and Singur, virtually declaring open season on non-Communists. There too, eyewitness and aid worker accounts suggest, there were more than two thousand casualties, including many “disappeareds”, a standard part of the modus operandi of fascist regimes (also see my column “Communism as Fascism”). Independent estimates suggest that Communists have managed to murder 100 million people worldwide.

The Communists’ most recent dance of death in Malabar has caught the attention of the national media only because of a ruckus in Delhi. Normally, large-scale murder by them is treated as a routine, uninteresting matter by the media, as though the Communists have a prerogative to murder anybody they do not like, especially any apostate who has converted out of Communism. In Kannur alone, a thousand people – all Hindus – have been murdered by Communists in the last few decades, in a systematic terror campaign.

There were three other recent incidents in India that were somewhat milder forms of state-sanctioned terror and oppression: nobody was killed, but the message was loud and clear that fascism is the order of the day. Two came from Tamil Nadu. One was the incident at the great temple at Chidambaram, where a number of the temple priests were arrested on ridiculous charges. The second was the attack on history and freedom of speech, when the organizers of a perfectly legal and impeccably historically accurate exhibition on Aurangazeb were assaulted and jailed.

A third was the shameful incident in which author Taslima Nasrin, a woman and a refugee, was exiled from India after assaults by Communist and Mohammedan fundamentalists, and prodding by a government that obviously has no principles whatsoever. This, in an India which has for millennia been the refuge of last resort for the oppressed and the dissident – the original destination for the “huddled masses”.

All of these episodes point to one fact: a clash of civilizations. This is slightly different from what Samuel P. Huntington talked about. Here it is a clash between two different world views, one the “ideologies of the desert” and one the “ideologies of the forest”. Alternatively, they may be called Semitic and Indic, because the Semitic belief systems do have a lot in common, and they are indeed of the West Asian desert. Similarly the Indic belief systems are of tropical rainforest Asia, whence the “aranyakas”, for instance.

There is a fundamental difference imposed by geography: the desert is masculine, harsh, cruel and unforgiving, and you have to live by a few simple rules, which you violate at your peril. For instance: store water; carry food; do not stray from the beaten path; stick with the crowd; show no sympathy to the sick and weak who might slow down your march. Interestingly, in the lush forests of India and further east, none of these rules matters, because the forest is feminine, abundant, bountiful and forgiving; you can afford to take a few risks; you can bend the rules and still survive.

These differences are clearly reflected in the ideologies that arose in their respective areas: the Semitic ones are masculine, harsh, cruel and unforgiving; the Indic ones are feminine, abundant, bountiful and forgiving. Apparently geography is truly history.

All four incidents I have recounted above are reflections of conflicts between the Semitic and the Indic. The Semitic belief systems are more numerous, and can be classified into a taxonomy based on their antiquity:

• Paleo-Semitic: Zoroastrianism, Judaism
• Meso-Semitic: Christianism, Mohammedanism
• Neo-Semitic: Communism, ‘Dravidianism’, Dalitism, and innumerable other isms that are invented every day

There are a few characteristics all Semitic ideas have: one is a Manichean good-evil, ingroup-outgroup, dichotomy, and hence the necessity to have a hated Other. Another is that they demand unquestioning faith: no skepticism is allowed, you have to believe what you are told. A third is a tendency towards intolerance and bigotry. Another is usually a rigid hierarchy, where the unwashed masses are controlled by an establishment of insiders who claim direct hotlines to the objects of reverence.

What you see in all the incidents described above is a struggle between a Semitic ideology and an Indic, where the Indic has been demonized and Other-ized, all the better to effect its liquidation. After all, nobody weeps for the demonized. And demonizing the enemy is a standard tactic in warfare.

The very language used by the Communists against the Indic Buddhists of Tibet (and especially against the Dalai Lama) clearly indicates their intent to demonize: “Nazi”, “feudal”, “splittist”. In exactly the same way the Communists of Malabar denounce the Indic Hindus as “RSS”, “Gandhi-killers”, “bourgeois”, “capitalist”. (Shades of the Nazis demonizing Jews as “Jesus-killers”, of course.)

Similarly the ‘Dravidians’, whose ideology is the Machiavellian divide-and-rule invention of a Christian padre named Caldwell, have their own patented words that they spit out with venom: “Brahmin”, “oppressor”, “casteist”, the irony being that in fact it is the so-called ‘Dravidians’ – the middle-castes of Tamil Nadu – who are, have been, and will be, the main oppressors of the lowest castes.

An interesting news story in this context, which slays all sorts of holy cows, talks about the threat by large numbers of middle-caste-convert Christians to return to Hinduism because of conflicts with low-caste-convert Christians (“20,000 Christians threaten to revert to Hinduism”, New Indian Express, 28^th March)
http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IET20080327234008&Page=T&Title=Southern+News+%2D+Tamil+Nadu&Topic=0 Hello! Isn’t a big part of the propaganda for conversion the claim that there is no caste discrimination in Christianity? Aren’t the ‘Dravidian’ middle-castes the best friends of the Harijans? So much for that all that bull-hickey!

The simple fact is that the Semitic ideas have been for a couple of millennia on the march against the Indic ideas, and they fully intend to extinguish the latter by fire, sword, cultural expropriation, ethnic cleansing, and whatever other means available.

The old religions that held sway around the world three millennia ago – those which have been demonized as “pagan” and “heathen” – were feminine, in fact female-dominated, as, for farming communities the fertility of the earth, as symbolized by the feminine, was of paramount importance. Of these, only the Indic faiths remain, battered but still standing.

Even though it was Zoroastrianism that initially articulated the Manichean dichotomy and the concept of absolute good and absolute evil, it was Christianism that took this idea to heart, and which destroyed native ideas wherever it went. In fact, the padre was as important for propaganda, brainwashing, and thus ease of conquest as the soldier was. Later Semitic ideologies have continued with gusto down this path.

The objective of the Communists (and other neo-Semitic ideologies) is to destroy Buddhism, Hinduism and other Indic faiths. In this, they seek to ally themselves with the meso-Semitics. The irony is that this is not exactly a clever strategy. Even if the meso-Semites come to power with the help of Communists, they liquidate the latter ruthlessly, and this should be considered poetic justice. This is why there are no Communists in Bangladesh, or Afghanistan. This is why the Vatican collaborated with the Americans to wipe out Communism in Eastern Europe.

The problem is monoculture (as reflected in monotheism and other such mono-manias). Each of the Semitic belief systems considers itself the one and only answer to all the problems of mankind. Therefore their Final Solution is to wipe out all other possible answers. From the point of view of those being wiped out, who undergoing “cultural genocide”, as the Dalai Lama put it, this is understandably a life-and-death matter. From the point of view of humanity as a whole, monocultures (remember the potato blight) are susceptible to catastrophic failure, and diversity is necessity for the system to evolve and respond to unforeseen events. Thus monocultures are not good for homo sapiens or the environment.

This is why it is deeply disturbing that the UPA government is so obviously on the side of the Semitics. It has demonstrated utterly craven behavior, imposing restrictions on refugee Tibetans and exiling Nasrin, as well as turning a blind eye to Communist and ‘Dravidian’ violence and oppression of Indic beliefs. Indic tolerance has been turned into dhimmitude.

Let us contrast this with what Swami Vivekananda said on September 11^th, 1893 (yes, exactly 108 years to the day prior to 9/11) at the Parliament of Religions: “I am proud to belong to a nation which has sheltered the persecuted and the refugees of all religions and all nations of the earth. I am proud to tell you that we have gathered in our bosom the purest remnant of the Israelites, who came to southern India and took refuge with us in the very year in which their holy temple was shattered to pieces by Roman tyranny. I am proud to belong to the religion which has sheltered and is still fostering the remnant of the grand Zoroastrian nation”. There is nothing to be proud of, only shame, in UPA-ruled India.

There is another point to ponder: consider all the divided nations that came into being a few decades ago: Germany, Vietnam, Korea, India. Germany and Vietnam have been re-united, and Korea will be, soon. But India will never be able to reunite the land masses of Pakistan and Bangladesh. Why? Those have become subject to a clean Final Solution of Semiticization: the Indics have been extinguished.

Final Solutions have worked for Semitics in many other places too before: they wiped out the native civilizations of Latin America, North America, Europe, West Asia, Central Asia, the Philippines, Australia, and so on. They are in the process of doing so in Korea and in the Indian Northeast. Theirs is not an idle threat; those who are in the gunsights of the Semites need to realize this is possibly the end of the line for them. They need to resist: no point going like lambs to the gas chamber. Resistance, armed and violent if necessary, is the only answer. There is no point in chanting the Vedas to a raging bull. Pacifism leads to extinction.

Tibet’s torture is a continuation of an earlier attempt Final Solution: circa 1192 CE, Bakhtiar Khilji wiped out Nalanda, burned the great library, and beheaded all the monks he could find. The handful who escaped with their lives established Tibetan Buddhism. It is ironic but not surprising that the Han Chinese Communists, a millennium later, are attempting to wipe out Tibetan Buddhism. This fits into a broad Communist – Mohammedan axis.

The rest of us Indics cannot stand by idly and let this happen. For, it is Tibetans today, it is the rest of the Indics once Tibet has been completely taken over. We have to rage, rage against the fading of the light; we cannot go gentle into that good night.

March 31, 2008