Showing posts with label media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label media. Show all posts

Friday, March 21, 2014

Rise and Fall of Anti Corruption Movement

Here's what happened in India.

Pre 2013:
Congress was winning elections due to ill-informed middle-class and mostly freebie enjoying rural population. In 1994, India's middle class population was just 2.5 crores. Now it is 10 times that. And one thing I observed is that middle class has more or less moved away from Congress. I don't have a single sane friend in my close circle, who vehemently supports Sonia Gandhi's party.

Since most political parties have their own designated votebanks (DMK, ADMK, BSP, SP, RJD etc.), by default middle class, that too in tier 1, 2 and 3 cities were supporting BJP in large numbers. But many were disillusioned with BJP too as those who were imported for quick power, did not stand up the scrutiny in many cases. And BJP is always disliked by those who have lesser connection to true Hindu roots. No matter what, for them BJP is dangerous.

This vacuum was exploited by Kejriwal. He could fool a few middle class disgruntled youth, who were encouraged by revolutions in the middle East, Occupy Wall Street and many other contemporary movements. They saw a messiah in him, even after he blatantly used Anna Hazare, Baba Ramdev and many more to only dump them to achieve his goal to grab power. And the hype continued 24*7 on TV.



Late 2013 and early 2014:

The small success in Dilli was portrayed by media as a great achievement. In reality, AAP had only 0.68% of MLA seats in India. In most countries such parties are not given the space they got in India. Why they got so much space?

2 reasons:
1) They had close media links as it was exposed in "bahut hi krantikaari" video -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hj6ScbJ3sY

2) Some middle class folks saw their potential to challenge BJP and Congress as a third front.

In Dilli, the situation is worse now. They have no government after Kejri ran out giving excuses and hence earned BhagodaKejri title.
The rapes, the crime, the water mafia, and everything is rampant.
Worse, the much publicized electricity "subsidy" drama has been exposed too. Kejri never left any money to pay for the subsidy.

http://zeenews.india.com/videos/setback-for-aap-delhi-hc-puts-electricity-subsidy-on-hold_27946.html

So in essence AAP and Kejriwal defaulted on ALL his promises to Dilli voters. The long list of u-turns and lies earned the title Kejri-Turn.
If an election is held in Dilli today, a vast majority of those who funded AAP just 4 months back may be reluctant to repeat the funding.

After running away after 49 days:

The 3 cities that had donated most to AAP, seeing hope in them were Dilli, Mumbai and Bengaluru.

Dilli was an utter flop episode. In fact, Sheila's government at least provided some governance and did not run away like Bhagoda Kejri.

In Mumbai the second most contributing city to AAP, he tried to test waters, but the show was bad. It resulted in AAP Chaos and people cursed the drama company.



Then the drama queen went down south to test waters in Bengaluru, the third highest contributing city to AAP.

It was so bad that the next morning's paper had flAAP show as the headline. The road show was cut short miles before the planned finish. Dinner saw only 175 and next day's rally was nowhere near the enthusiasm shown to Anna Hazare's rallies 2 years back at Freedom park. The local people almost fully dumped Kejri and gang with only some North Indian migrants still sticking to sloganeering.



So now what?
Modi wave is clearly predicting an NDA government now. The third, fourth, republic and AAP fronts are all collapsing. Congress is staring at 100 or so seats only. So what's now for Kejri whose political existence is at stake?

The one and only option. Go anti Modi in full force. At least that way he would be in news for 2 more months.

So the 2014 election battle is back to the familiar BJP versus "secularism". This time even within BJP, Modi has overshadowed everyone, sending them to non-striker end.



Another way to showin the same desperate effort of all anti BJP forces trying to dislodge Modi's tsunami, keeping Kejri was a poster boy.



That my friends, is a summary of the rise and fall of anti-corruption movement in India. Now we are back to election time secularism and communalism debate, but the only change this time is... Modi has turned communalism debate in most cases into Development debate. Even Mulayam Singh Yadav and Arvind Kejriwal, with zero development track record, have been forced to talk of development (or talk negatively about Gujarat where development is clearly visible to the local people).

Modi has already won 2 battles.

1) He has emerged as the clear winner within BJP camp. It took him lot of effort.
2) He has forced casteists, communals and even anarchists to talk of development topic. In fact, Modi's clear emergence as leader has already secured NDA 20+ allies before the election itself! That's comparable to Vajpayee's ally strength at the peak of NDA :)

Now the third and the last step in his 2014 battle would be to demolish the pretentious anti-corruption squad and their sponsoring corrupt Congress team by big margin. Let's hope he does!

 {Credit to pictures - social media}

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Know Why You Are On Social Media

In my view, there are two kinds of social media users.

The first group comprises of those who are enthusiasts enjoying Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and others.Let's call them Social Media Enthusiasts.

The second group is a bit more serious one. It consists of Social Media Activists. These are the folks who generate serious content, trends, work towards a common goal (mostly), take on challenges from the opposing ideology etc. In short, the "workers", who have have a fairly passionate goal. In majority of the cases, these 'worker bees' won't be paid, but they still do this activism because it is important to their heart.

No one knows what percentage of Twitter or Facebook users belong to the second category. My best guess is that it could be around 20%. Because the majority of those who use their computers and mobiles, usually do for study, news gathering, communicating or entertainment.

Let's focus on the second group, the Social Media Activists:

I am going to take up an example which is very familiar to me. In India, there's a huge pool of Twitter and Facebook users, who are frustrated with the corruption and lack of growth, due to outdated socialistic policies of a particular dynasty headed party. So, they are indulging in a fairly serious campaign on the social media, to remove the corrupt regime and instill a relatively corruption free, progressive and fast developing India. Without getting into personalities involved here, that sums up what I call, a "Pro-Hindu, Pro-Bharatiya" social media group. They have deep passion in particular for their fellow Hindus, their society at-large and the overall good of their nation.




I am sure most people who are in this group, depicted in the diagram above as green small arrows, know their overall goal. But what's missing here is the cohesion. They miss out the boundary separating their individual heterogeneous behaviour to a team play necessary in the homogeneous format. That creates differences. Sometimes it could be over their focus on Dharma aspects, sometimes over engagement with media houses and sometimes over political movements within their broader ideological umbrella. The list is endless.

So how do we handle differences? It needs some broad set of rules which will guarantee individual enthusiasm in using social media, while the common alignment needed to achieve their collective goal.

Here are some rules that I propose:

1) Do not lose your cool when provoked.
You are here on Twitter or Facebook to have fun. Your time is precious. Your resources used like time and money are precious. Don't waste it by unnecessarily indulging in personal fights or mudslinging. Yes, "eeth ka jawab pathhar se" (Reply with a rock when provoked with a brick) sounds adrenaline pumping, but if you do it too often, it's a vicious cycle drowning sane voices.

There are people specifically on the social media to provoke you. They have their own agenda. Don't fall into their trap.

2) Do not abuse:
No matter how grave the issue is, no matter how justified you think that you need to swear, go very easy on hurling abuses. Best thing is to never abuse anyone's family, caste, religion, language, sex etc. But if you lose cool occasionally, try to correct your path. Apologize openly if necessary. There's no ego involved here as abuse is never justified. Abuse is always relative as for one person even calling 'idiot' might be an abuse. So you position your own comfort level, but always watch for reactions. You can fine tune the line between criticism and abuse.

3) Do not try to control other like minded people - Try to convince.
This is one side effect of considering someone as your "friend" on social media. You might have interacted online or offline or both with that person. You have great trust on that person. Suddenly, when the person does something, like raising a viewpoint that is totally uncomfortable for you, try to convince them. Do not try to force your way, as you will eventually lose. If the person says he likes meat and if you are a strong advocate of vegetarianism, try to convince or compromise. You are no-one to force that person to not speak about meat recipes. If the person is invited as a guest to a particular corporate house, which you strongly disapprove, explain why he/she must not attend, rather than trying to bulldoze.

4) Do not try any boycott.
Another big mistake by emotional folks. There are group efforts to boycott some nations, some corporations, some papers, some ideology or some public figures. It could even be an angry campaign against your former online "friend"! Go back and look at your common goal in the picture above. By advocating boycott, you will most likely mobilize only a small group within that big heterogeneous team.  It's not easy and most likely you will fail. If you have enough impact on the groups, eventually the boycott may happen in other ways, but it takes a sustained campaign and very tough to implement. If you just can't take a person, just disengage, instead of trying for a mass boycott. Know your limits.


5) Do not let your differences break the group:
Know your opponents and your overall goals. If you want to reform your society, bring in new & capable leaders, end the vicious cycle of failures, you need to work really hard as a team. There would be a very concentrated fight back from your opponents, who know why you are here. Your online campaign is making them uncomfortable. They want all tricks in the book to break your team or group. Hence, do NOT let them break up your precious network. Your opponents are much bigger, hugely funded and powerful mainstream entities. Co-opt when necessary and expose where necessary.

Know where you should agree to disagree. Individual freedom and the collective group goal are two things which needs to be addressed. If you develop enough closeness with your online friend(s), you would have shared phone numbers by now. So talk things through offline. Have in-person meetings in your cities when required to re-energize the collective goal. The more cracks that are visible in your group to your opponent, the more they will exploit those fault lines. "Divide and Rule" is something that we are all familiar with, and your cracks are invitation for your opponents to use the same policy yet again. Worse, the casual social media enthusiasts will get either confused or get swayed away from you, if they see serious infighting among yourselves.

At the end, your social network activism will fail if you are divided and fighting among yourselves. And that's exactly what those in the position of power and those who want to censor or shut freedom of expression, want. Don't fall into their hands so easily. Social media is a great equalizer and even a bigger game changer. Treasure its power and achieve your collective goal!


{Credit: Parts of the illustrative picture was picked from socialpsychology.org, top10hitz.com and dil-ke-colour-pencil-se.blogspot}

Monday, April 30, 2012

"Wake Up BJP" : An Open Letter to Nitin Gadkari

To,
Nitin Gadkari
National President, Bharatiya Janata Party
13, Teen Murti Lane, New Delhi - 110011
Cell: +91 9821080522
Tel: 91 - 11- 23011027
Fax: 91 - 11- 23013027
Email: nitingadkari@email.com
www.nitingadkari.org  

From,
The Friends of BJP on Social Networks.

Dear Nitin Gadkari ji,
  Namaskaar. This is a friendly letter from the social media friends of Bharatiya Janata party. We hope you are having a few minutes to read this important letter from people, who might still be fairly low on the hierarchy of voices that might be reaching you.

Why are we writing this to you? Because in simple terms, we genuinely care for the ideology Sangh Parivar stands for, the bright future India deserves, and most importantly, to give a fresh set of ideas to a party that claims to represent the "Bharatiyata", the core of India.

So what is in this letter that you don't hear from top level think tanks and strategists surrounding you? We think there's a lot. The suggestions might sound ordinary at times, but this is unpaid and unforced section of Young India speaking to you. A country where almost 2/3rd of the population is below the age of 35, their opinion is what is showing up in most of this letter. It would be your final judgment of course to take it or leave it, but just remember...these are the people who can make or break a large part of internet literate segment of 2014 voters of BJP.

So here we start, in no particular order:

1> Counter Attack: Turn back the clock a couple of months. Every news channel was on BJP's 'porngate' episode. Congress was conducting road show after road show, totally taking this negative publicity of BJP to masses. But what did BJP do when the infamous Abhishek Manu Singhvi CD came out? Yes, there were some restrictions he cleverly managed from court. But the entire social media knew what was happening. This was 100 times more serious a issue for the nation considering who and where parts. Did BJP take this in a big way to the masses? Did they conduct road shows? Did they make sure this is a big topic for news debates or editorials? In terms of intensity, BJP failed miserably we should say. Even for a seemingly fake case like Gujarat assembly porn watch, far more damage was done by anti-BJP forces at ground level. So sir, just eloquent parliament speeches can only go so far. BJP as a party is squandering serious opportunities like Rajbala's death during Ramdev's camp's midnight crackdown, AMS tape, ND Tiwari paternity case and Maderna case. No one is suggesting to hit below the belt or send un-parliamentary messages. But at least counter attack decently to get the core issue to the potential voters.

2> Scams and Propaganda: 2004-2012 must have been India's worst scam period. Majority of these scams are undoubtedly due to Congress party's misrule and their hapless "coalition dharma". Social media is well versed with details of CWG, President's land issues, 2G, Bofors, Coal gate, Karnataka Wakf Scam, Andhra Pradesh scams involving YSR family, Land grabbing in a number of Congress ruled states, Haryana land scam involving a reputed dynasty foundation, Mining frauds involving non-BJP ruled states and much more. How effective has been BJP here? When Congress has succeeded in equating Mining Scam = BJP, due to sustained propaganda, where is the PR arm of BJP? How much of the RTI support group muscle has BJP used till date? In states like Karnataka, where you have your own government, how many went to prison for Wakf Scam kind of massive loot? Yes, most people know that Congress is involved in these big scams, but where are the resignations? How many tainted CMs like Sheila Dikshit or their Ministers at state levels have quit? How many central ministers went on jail due to BJP's sustained efforts? Minuscule we must say. Yes, sir, as a principal opposition party, you can do a LOT better!

3> Media Management: If you have not grabbed this info by now, sir, electronic media for most part is termed as "paid media" in social media discussions. It's almost a synonym today. Such is the poor image and credibility of India's TV channels. One of the key reason being their rabid anti-Hindu propaganda and in particular anti-Sangh or anti-BJP propaganda. You can go through Karnataka Bhagavad Gita episode, UP's Sushma Swaraj and Mayawati "heartless" episode, or Delhi court's Mohan Bhagwat's Karkare episode. Media has been ruthless and loud in defaming BJP at every given opportunity. Most of the times, they get caught on social media like Twitter, Blogs and Facebook. But has BJP used that info? If yes, how effectively? When Karnataka Bhagavad Gita Abhiyana was projected as a state sponsored episode, why didn't BJP seek legal course against a prominent media house to prevent such recurrences in the future? When a TV program insulted 5 crore Gujaratis as "traditionally effete people" showing Narendra Modi's visuals, where was the noise from BJP? When Sushma Swaraj was misinterpreted, why didn't BJP seek a public apology from another media house? When lies are propagated that 2002 was India's worst minority dead-body count, why is BJP not talking about the unfortunate Nellie massacre from 1983 to give the truth to people?

Not countering the negative and baseless propaganda is hurting BJP, and also not projecting the pro-BJP news items. For example, many Christian candidates winning in Goa under Manohar Parrikar's leadership should have been a serious topic of discussion when it involves a "Hindutva" party per media created image. How come your strategists, friendly aspects in media and foot soldiers didn't take that to millions of homes?  When Karnataka chose its latest CM via secret ballot, that could have been projected as a US style primary, instead of what media projected as "puppet" selection. Where is the credit for superbly implementing Bengaluru Metro? How about Narmada canal wonders? How many even remember today driving on Golden Quadrilateral that it was Vajpayee's government that did wonders? Where are the positives from Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh etc.? Web based Yuvai TV is a good initiative by some energetic individuals, but you have miles to run before you can catch-up anywhere closer to the grip anti-BJP ideology has on Indian print and electronic media. The media which gave serious negative publicity to one unverified Varun Gandhi speech, never did even 1% of that damage to Congress for a veteran Congress leader Kagodu Thimmappa's "cut Hindutva hands" hate speech.

Sir, in short, you need huge efforts on media management side. Own media houses, manage current media houses and work on creating a pro-Sangh alliance of broadcasting outlets. This is easier said than done, but you might not be gauging the ripple effect of negative publicity, day-in and day-out.

4> Image Makeover: Sorry to say this Mr.Gadkari, many in the young India we interact with, perceive BJP today mostly as a "B team of Congress". Per social media, the true opposition in India today are: a) Supreme Court. b) Social Media. c) Subramanian Swamy. The "3S Opposition" to be put it that way:) That's a serious problem you need to work on. Congress talks of secularism, you also do it now. Congress talks of socialistic populism, you also talk the same. Congress talks half-heartedly about Lokpal & other watch dogs, and you also do the same. Congress is a High Command driven decision making system, and you are also the same now. Congress talks of reservation, and you do that too. Congress talks of growth and you too do that. We understand that many of these are political compulsions. But where is the difference for a casual observer? The difference was evident 22 years back, but not anymore! You should be able to convey to a 22 year old voter, "what is BJP" and "how is is different from Congress" in 5 to 10 sentences. Can you do it sir?

More importantly, not just saying why BJP is "different". But living by that policy at all states that BJP is ruling, is far more important. If you stand for Lokpal, implement good Lokayukta policies across your ruled states. If you stand by for anti-cow-slaughter, then legally push the Governors who are becoming impediment for the same.

5> Projection of a PM Candidate: BJP is a democratic party, so there is always an opening for dissent or healthy competition. This is a great difference compared to a dynasty centric sycophantic setup on the Congress side. But since we have less than 18 months for campaigning to start for 2014 elections, you need to project your PM candidate soon. Project candidates for all key positions like Home, Law, Deputy PM (if any), Party Office bearers openly and clearly. Clarity is most important here, in spite of the inherent risks involved in projecting earlier. There's always a chance of polarization of the voters, but without a projection, BJP will be playing into the hands of Congress and media's negative speculations. We wish to inform you that the popular names for top positions on the social media are Narendra Modi and Subramanian Swamy for quite some time. Those two are more popular with young Indians than any of your Delhi based senior leadership. You can run online polls or surveys to feel the pulse better yourself.

6> Standing for Party Loyalists: Bangaru Laxman was in news, albeit negatively, last week. We are not suggesting to protect any corrupt or wrong-doer. But many voices on social network suggested that he was unfairly trapped, when he had no decision making capability as a minister or anything... worse, he seemingly offered a receipt too. Where was BJP's defence for him? Did you see how Congress stood behind P Chidambaram and SM Krishna when they have much worse charges? Did you forget that "Dalit" card is very powerful in India? To take this topic a step further, lots of people in young India feel that BJP has resorted to use and throw policy over the past few years. Kalyan Singh, BS Yeddyurappa, Uma Bharati, Vasundhara Raje, BC Khanduri are some examples of mass leaders who are either sidelined or under-utilized by BJP today. What we, on the social network feel, is that your party pays too much attention to what pro-Congress media plays out about your leaders. As a result, you are quick to succumb to media pressure or Congress propaganda. What you might not be realizing sir is that, you are getting trapped in their strategy to strip BJP off its mass leaders, the people who can win states on their shoulders. Yes, there will be charges against them, but you need to balance the "party with a difference" tag with "Indian rules that everyone else plays with". Hope you get our message. One of the loudest criticism of BJP's top 4 or 5 leaders today at Delhi, is that, they hardly can win any states with their strategy or charm or mass appeal. Don't get us wrong for this criticism. Ponder upon, why people are saying that.

By the way, if your party was sleeping, Sonia Gandhi, the UPA chairperson, was shown with up to $19 billion as assets by an influential Business Insider magazine. This is against just a crore or two of declared assets by the same person. Some quick maths indicate that that amount may be almost a crore TIMES bigger than Bangaru Laxman's amount in question. Yes, one crore times nearly sir.. Hope you ponder more on a huge missed opportunity!

7> Legal Muscle:  Who doesn't know Subramanian Swamy? Of course everyone knows this one man show, in the name of Janata party from Tamil Nadu. But here is the scoop. Have you wondered how a party, with zero MLAs and zero MPs in India, is almost bringing the mighty Congress empire to its knees via legal muscle? On the other side, BJP, a party with celebrity lawyers, has not done anything substantial to get this government on its knees. Be it CWG, or 2G or any scam worth its name, BJP lawyers are not fighting to give a fatal blow to any key minister of Congress. In fact, hush-hush talk on social media suggests that some key lawyers might even have worked in favour of some accused on the Congress roaster. Serious problem sir.. Take a deep breath and analyze the situation as well as the perception.

8> "Bharatiya" issues: We know that BJP is strongly for Kashmir pandits's return rights, hanging of anti-nationals like Kasab & Afzal, deportation of Bangladeshi infiltrators, bringing North East people to mainstream, among other sensitive but important topics. But sir, you can do far better. RSS has the world's largest grass root presence. Millions of volunteers are available to take the Bharatiyata message to lakhs of villages through them. In spite of them, if BJP is not able to educate an average Indian about the massive security & integration risks, resulting out of votebank politics. A simple example. Till earlier this year, most of us didn't even know about the plight of Hindu refugees from Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. Now when we hear the separatist views highlighted on English channels, we see the hypocrisy of sidelining the SC/ST Hindu plight in Jammu's refugee camps. Please work on the Bharatiya issues aggressively taking sincere help from the cadres.

9> Alliance in Key States: Many of us view the same sentiments here. There are over 240 Lok Sabha seats in TN, AP, WB,  Kerala,  Odisa and UP. That's just under 30 seats to half way of Indian parliament's lower house. Where are the allies of BJP here? If an election is held today, will BJP be able to win even 20% of these crucial seats? Without them, how can you dream of 2014? Congress has almost given 2014 to BJP on platter via a corrupt and inept regime. We are sure you have serious strategists working with you on this topic, but we just thought, we inform you nearly 2 years before the next scheduled election, as we see very little on the ground in these states.

10> Not wasting time: If you ever open a Twitter account and seek opinion on how to improve BJP's chances, we guarantee, this topic will come up. This particular topic is from those who are frustrated with BJP's recent attempts to portray itself as secular. The message from them to you is that you should focus on your Core Ideology. India is secular because Hindus are mostly secular. That's the truth. Take more advice from the super successful undercurrent of Indian society, the RSS. For many people like us, BJP is just one major project of the Sangh Parivar, among the 1,60,000 Bharatiya projects they have! Don't feel bad, but that's how young India that we interact with perceives your party. So don't ever cut the umbilical chord with the ideological nerve center.

BJP needs to first convince 82% of Indians, who are Hindus of all segments and castes, that it is their best hope. That's a huge challenge considering 64 years of systematic division of Hindu votes into innumerable caste and language vote categories. If you can manage to unite them, rest will fall in place. Your portrayal of Rama Rajya or Hindu Rashtra has been severely distorted as "Hindus Only" India by your detractors. We know that's not the case, but you have to do a stellar job selling that to your potential voters. We know on social media that Congress is severely "Minority first" ideology right from Khilafat movement days 92 years back. There's nothing surprising at all to a careful observers. But it's a joke that they can stand in public and term BJP as communal and claim themselves as Secular. This is even after Shah Bano or UP Muslim communal reservation speeches. This is where BJP failed big time. Correction time now! Primarily being pro-Hindu or standing for Hindu human rights, does NOT mean, being anti-Muslim or anti-Minority. Every country has major parties catering to the majority's wishes and aspirations. Opposing minority appeasement like massive (and un-Islamic) Hajj subsidy, is not opposing minority rights. Narendra Modi's all-inclusive development is just one example you can use with facts and figures, minus any rhetoric.

11> Engaging with Digital World: Social media may be in its infancy in India, but sir, let us assure you, it has already cut some major victories. Radia tapes were discussed by mainstream media due to social media pressure. Various riots were even reported because of social media trends. Numerous shady scams and shady acts like AMS CD, came out due to buzz on social media. BJP needs to use this nascent opportunity, like the successful Subramanian Swamy, via Tweeple conferences and weekly online chats to feel the pulse. This can also be used immensely to perpetuate the superb development efforts of various BJP state governments. We might be a few million on web today, and no way comparable to the 100s of millions in rural India, but the trend from here can only be one-directional. More strength to social media and we hope you become an early conqueror of this open space. As a first step, you can also instruct your IT cells to get key digests of social media's political topics, and circulate the gist among the decision makers of the party. We assure you, there's immense information out on Twitter, blogs and Facebook, that you can win any issue in a debate tomorrow! Encourage all your key leaders and parliamentarians to be on social media, and truly engage with the people when time permits. Most importantly, listen to BJP supporters and sympathizers, when they criticize your policies, instead of blocking them to shut their voice.


We hope you read till here, and more importantly realized WHY we are writing this open letter to you. Now please act precisely and in a timely fashion. You know it and we know it... the ONLY party in India today, that can win 3 digit Lok Sabha seats other than Congress, is BJP. Don't let down the folks opposing Congress..for India's sake!

- Signing off with a loud "Vande Mataram"
Your Social Media Friends.

PS: Read comments below for more from online friends on the same topic.

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Rajiv Malhotra : An Intellectual Kshatriya

Today,  I came across Rajiv Malhotra - termed popularly as an Intellectual Kshatriya (Warrior). He is surely an awesome eloquent spokesperson for Sanatana Dharma in the West! He runs Infinity foundation. He is from management consulting background for big firms like AT&T in the United States. I did come across his work during the prior years, but never spent a full hour listening to his immense knowledge and the power of delivery. Today's time spent was an eye opener!

Needless to say, I was so impressed with his speech & the wide array of topics he covered, I am taking time to write this blog, encouraging others to learn more about this spectacular strategist, thinker and speaker!

A few of the salient points from his five part speech videos, follows here.{Updated on Sep 15, 2011: One Video, covering all five parts embedded}


He starts off his speech, in the Part 1, quoting "Purva Paksha", the need of knowing the opposing point of view. This part of debate technique was historically legitimate in India was covered first. You might want to refer to Adi Shankara and his debates to learn more about Purva Paksha technique.

Then he covered something that totally surprised me.. I consider myself a bit involved in learning contemporary Hinduism, I am actively involved in debates on the social networks on Hindu dharma, I conduct DharmaQuiz as a fun way of learning about India's core ideology,  among other ways to keep me engaged with Dharmic traditions. But hearing a few things about the "Project Breaking India" took me by surprise. We all would have heard of the political side of pseudo-secularism or 'secularism' in quotes as a fundamental threat to the unity and integrity of India, its culture and its people. But this Breaking India project, an Intellectual, emotional & psychological breakup of India, conceptually scared me. Is it some man's wild dream or something that is already deep rooted, taking most Hindus & secular Indians by surprise?

Keep reading...

He systematically covered a possible physical breakup of India, starting with Dalit Freedom network, funded
Breaking India, a book by Rajiv Malhotra and Aravindan Neelakandan
by White Christians of Denver and other places. Then he talks about 1040 and Joshua projects aiming at massive conversion of Hindus and other native coreligionists of India. Then he talks about Tehelka's undercover operation to expose the anti-united-India activities of the church via Joshua projects on rural side of India. He particularly stressed on the the ownership of land in rural area by churches, strategically using them to convert people.

Gospel for Asia in Dallas, using religious hate speech was covered in the next part of his speech. European Lutheran church in Scandinavia and Germany, that uses Human rights argument to isolate India politically, and then police India via church backed networks was highlighted.

Then he covers the mega strategic tool used by those who want to sideline & suppress Hinduism in particular, using strong political muscle. US Commission on Religious Freedom, Clinton setup commission, to monitor religious freedom across the world (except USA, of course). Very surprisingly,  it's Watch list has India in it, along with Islamic extreme state like Afghanistan!! He claims that religious freedom is actually too much in India, if you live and observe it, but this commission purposefully paints Hindus as the bad guys. Anyone with even 15 days of vacation through the vast country of India, would not believe an ounce of that India=Afghanistan argument when it comes to religious freedom. It's a shame that a public funded group in the world's most powerful democracy, is painting such horrendous picture! Rajiv peels layer by layer, as to how most of the 'complaints' & 'testimonies' about India, are from those supported by Joshua, Lutheran, Dalit Freedom network kind of anti-India conversion networks. And, there's no cross examination allowed by Sanatana Dharma Hindu organizations like Arsha Vidya Gurukulam, Pejavar Matha, Sringeri Shankara matha, Varanasi Hindu sabhas, Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Arya Samaj and Ramakrishna mission. Essentially this is a one way propaganda mission to put India and Indians on the defensive! He talks about 15 commissioners - Muslims, Christians (Worldvision kind of open Christian conversion organization backed) & Jews. No Hindu/Jain/Sikh/Buddhist commissioners nominated. Rajiv Malhotra's 600 page book's chapter 17 exposes each of these commissioners, their backgrounds linking to church and how they are trying to break India via an agenda.

Then be backs up the timeline to give us a holistic view of how this whole break-India conceptualizations started 200 years back. He covers Robert Caldwell, an evangelist missionary and others of 19th century, how they created Dravidian-Aryan division theory. How they used distortion of  Saint Thomas' "influence" on Thirukkural etc. in South India.. how their ideology is used today for a distortion that Hinduism is a 'Brahmin' conspiracy and if you get back to Saint Thomas' ideology, you will go back to original Christianity in the south! Dravidian & Dalit concepts are being grouped to form a common anti-Hinduism umbrella. Third kind of divide is the minority identity against Hinduism, which already cost India two physical parts during the 20th century.

Then he covers what would most interest my social media buddies. The systematic media management part, using mainly foreign Christian sources. Talks about 'Christian Media in India' book (I didn't catch the exact title or author), the money sources, the control of Indian media, making news agencies (NDTV, Times of India, The Hindu kind) planting Christian-twist stories, producing journalists with their ideologies, networking with international wires to make them 'world wide' news material all the way to NY Times, Christian Science Monitor etc. Talks about many of them being fabricated systematic spread of rubbish. This part was well observed by folks on Twitter in India, but Rajiv's claim of such a deep rooted network to this extent just shocked me! Maybe we should buy his book by paying $20 and read more on this chapter closely.

Then comes the most bizarre bed partners fact. The axis of leftists (US, mostly South Asia academic, like Ford Foundation) and rightists (Western Christian, like Rockefeller right of center foundations) working together in this effort against Hinduism in India. Western Right takes on Christianity basis and Western Left takes on the basis of secularism, human rights etc. He also exposes Indian left are in bed with Western Christian Right!

Unbelievable collaboration of opposing ideologies  per Mr.Malhotra!

He then moves on to the assault on Sanskrit, Gurus, anything core of Hindu is from this combo of ideological attacks, well funded from the West.

Then he challenges the notion of minority concept itself.
Rajiv's words mostly as is: "If you were to go to India, and see a MacD restaurant with 20 employees, you would not say its a minority restaurant. What matters is that this is 1 of the 50,000 branches of the world. You don't take one restaurant as a minority. Same way, one church in India is a part of Vatican global empire. The Bishop is appointed by Vatican. Their property is indirectly under Vatican's rule. So Indian Christians are a part of huge multinational. Not just Catholics, but Mormons, Baptists, Lutherans etc. Just like you don't give MacDonald in India a minority privilege, you can't give a church in India also a minority status. Similar stuff for Mosques too based on the global Islamic empire. If they are independent local concepts, yes, they should be treated as minority. But if a church or a mosque is a part of a large multinational conglomerate, including funding, how can it enjoy minority privilege in India?"
He continues: Not just the numerical strength locally, but a group must be looked as a global strength too. Christians and Muslims being billions in this world, they are in no way a handicap minority group in India. That should be the criteria. Top down appointments from head quarters from foreign country, including total control of funds & operation, how can Christians & Muslims can be termed minorities?

He then moves on to the topic of the fear of human rights policing as a strategic tool to keep Indian political leadership terrified, unlike China. When the US condemns human rights, within two weeks China releases its own human rights to condemn US! But Indians academics, religious leaders or political leaders hardly study US to counter the 'human rights' baton. 

Indians are weak because the leaders don't know where they should stand when it comes to these systematic religious & cultural attacks from outside. He then covered the in-fighting among Hindus. Neo-Vedantins fighting among each other. Sufism in Delhi, via music, creating inferiority complex towards Hinduism was covered.

Hindus need to know what is non-negotiable for internal unity, and also what is needed to counter external aggression. Per Rajiv, Indian Hindus hardly know how their difference with rest of the world, can form a unity among them. Covers analogy among Western unity from Hagan's time (?). Europeans' uniqueness, Euro centric identity, was contrasted with the rest, creating the whole 'West' concept, uniting French, English, German etc. He then briefly talked about another book, coming up, with the Indian Hindu history, ideology, philosophy, identity, with a contrast to others is essential to make Indians know who they are.

Here is the full set of 5 videos, if you have an hour to listen to this Sanatani Hindu, who has the power to create strategy that might unite the utterly divided Hindus of the world today!

Updated on 15, Sep, 2011: All 5 parts together: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByaheAphduQ

{ The following videos have been turned as private by the Youtube user.
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Well done in educating us Mr.Malhotra! Two Thumbs up!