We still struggle with freedom—we have to defeat the sins within before we wake up?

We still struggle with freedom—we have to defeat the sins within before we wake up?

Why this Kohliveri?


The candidate may be dead. The ghosts dance on.

There are two dangerous moments in the life of any politician. One comes when he has the misfortune to be the messenger of bad news. Good news is brought by a crowd; bad news is borne by an individual, for the crowd suddenly discovers it has other things to do. The messenger's loyalty and courage are always praised — he may even, in some circumstances, be awarded the Padma Vibhushan — before his tongue is sliced off and deposited in a very cold icebox. Bad news may be necessary, but that does not mean that it is welcome. when has good sense been the decisive criterion of human behaviour? The instinct of hatred needs a far more powerful antidote. It could have found its answer in greed.



In public life — and both the market and politicians are in public life — you need not only a thick skin but also a strong chin. You have to take the blow on the chin and keep standing. A totter is not a pleasant sight in public life.

Logic and politics are not necessarily incompatible. If you live by the sword, you die by the sword. If you live by market forces you die by market forces. Inflation is the most logical face of market forces. It is the market that sets the agenda. It is the market that raises prices based on its assessment of supply, demand and profitability. The market has no loyalty, least of all to government. The market has no social conscience: no food-trader ever died of hunger in the famine, or emerged out of the crisis with his bank balance depleted. The market is loyal to one concept, profit. The politician wants to win; the market wants to profit.

There is a second old rule in politics. Stick with friends, but stick closer to enemies. An Obama or a Mayawati has learnt that sentiment is a trap. Once you have fought a foe to death, you can always dance with the ghost on the way to power.

Indian Muslims too are influenced by both regional and national issues: the Muslim League's views in Kerala
In fact with the UP assembly elections in sight and and campaign getting hotter by the day, everybody who is somebody is trying to encash on the Muslim sentiments. Almost every Muslim leader, who has little contribution in the development of the community, has floated his own party.

Why are Muslims afraid of adopting strategies similar to those adopted by Sikhs?


Similarly while the government implemented an amendent in the Indian constitution to allow OBC Sikhs reservation under the Mandal Commission, it refuses to listen to the vociferous demands of a much larger OBC Muslim subcommunity to allow them the same facility. Why is that so? For how long and how much inequality and injustice Muslims can withstand in the country where they have lived and for which they have died for a thousand years?


Why do the leaders of 150 million Muslims not assert their very basic rights? Why are the lessons from the elections in the last 18 months in the states of Assam, Bengal, Bihar, UP that if Muslims adopt smart strategy they can have a voice in decisionmaking, not trickle down into the strategies of Muslim leaders at least on life and death issues of the Indian Muslim qaum?


When a few years ago Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Mulayam Singh Yadav joined hands with the former Chief Minister and expelled BJP leader Kalyan Singh, Muslims cried foul and accused him of betraying the community, which always supported the party, by aligning with the man behind demolition of Babri Masjid. Azam Khan, the Muslim face of the SP, quit the party in protest (though his differences with Amar Singh was said to be the main reason for his quitting the party). Samajwadi Party suffered big losses in the election that followed when Muslims voted against it. Ironically, some leaders of the same Muslim community are hobnobbing with the saffron parties on the eve of elections to the Uttar Pradesh state Assembly for reasons best known to them. First, Shia scholar and Vice-President of All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) Maulana Kalbe Sadiq had a meeting with former RSS chief Sudarshan and later in a statement appealed to Muslims to vote for honest Hindus. What conspired between the two leaders is not known, but one can ask as what message the Maulana wanted to give to the community through his appeal? When did Muslims not vote for secular and honest Hindus? The Congress Party, SP and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) which Muslims voted from time to time are led by Hindus and majority of candidates fielded by them are Hindus.Then does Maulana Sadiq believe that only Sudarshan and his brand of Hindus are honest?