Rambles…

April 2, 2024

 

Since I reverted the post I wrote yesterday to draft mode, I felt I needed to write a new one that I was willing to share for this week. I pulled off yesterdays' post because it occurred to me that the thoughts I had in it — mostly about the honourable martial artist — were worth incubating and keeping aside for a more reflective personal essay. I was left pondering that not only is the pen mightier than the sword to effect socio-political change, it is mightier to process internally and create. That is obvious, I mean when is violence ever creative? Or are there instances when it is? And there definitely are instances when the pen or the written word brainwashes and destroys. This is another rabbit hole of exploration I can fall into, but I don’t have time for it today.

I’ve had a strange flu that comes and goes for almost ten days now. It started with a sore throat and then a fever was added to it and then it improved and now the sore throat has returned. The scratchiest sore throat ever. I feel almost in a dream state as this flu wanes and waxes, and also feel a bit irritable, but it is a busy week and things keep moving. 

Yesterday I had said that I wanted a break from writing about Indian pre-election politics. But the ruthless way in which the ruling party is trying to destroy the opposition of course remains in my mind. Because I often comment on articles written by independent media and engage with troll-types (they probably see me as one), I see the way the ruling party is creating the narratives.

In one of its latest doings the ruling party has dug up an old issue, about the island of Katchatheevu being given to Sri Lanka in 1974. Idiots supporting the ruling party have blamed Nehru, our first PM, for this — somebody forgot to tell them that he was already dead a decade when this happened. The island has become, apparently, strategically important because China is suddenly in that neighbourhood through one of Sri Lanka’s ports that Sri Lanka has been forced to lease out to China for 99 years. So of course, the game of blaming the Congress began as it is also election season. Meanwhile China has renamed Arunachal Pradesh, and the ruling party is doing little to fight that battle — changing names can be the first step to claiming ownership — with China, but a BJP IT cell alert may have gone out claiming that the North-Eastern states were never part of India as they are not mentioned in our National Anthem, so how can we lose what was never ours. A troll-type I was arguing with wrote this. 

Sorry those not Indian reading this might not get the stupidity of this but Indians reading, prepare to hear this — Arunachal Pradesh was never ours — said more often, to cover up yet another failure of the ruling party. Maybe that’s why the PM hasn’t visited Manipur yet even though it is coming up to a year and the north-eastern state is still consumed by ethnic violence but since it is not reported by mainstream media it is as good as it is no longer happening. If a tree falls in an empty forest does it make a sound? Does it fall at all? But perhaps I am wrong and that was just that one supporter of BJP making it up for himself. The ones who run the IT cell are not stupid, though the ruling party is desperate. 

I think India is still on a Modi wave and the BJP is going to win but it wants to win with a 400 majority so it can change the constitution. I am not saying this, a BJP party member said it. But in crushing the opposition by jailing CM’s and freezing accounts it is overplaying its hand. I think fear that it had underestimated the Indian public is the reason that the Congress account was unfrozen. Germany, the US, and UN, had begun talking about these events and were told to mind their own business, but the Indian people are also talking and they are the ones whose votes matter.

Meanwhile I took a lunch break and watched one of my favourite u-tubers talk about Katchatheevu island that is suddenly appearing in election speeches. He said that the island is approximately 250 acres big and does not even have water sources. Also the Solicitor General of India in 2014, Mukul Rohatgi, after the BJP had won the election had said during a Supreme Court hearing filed by another party to reclaim it, ‘Why rake this up so many years later.’ The island then was mostly important because fisher-folk often strayed into Sri Lankan waters and were picked up the Sri Lankan coastal guard — and visa versa, and prisoner exchanges had to be made. Also in 2015, 17,000 acres of land was ceded to Bangla Desh by the BJP in an exchange to improve the border situation. Bangla Desh returned 7,000 acres to India. 

But it is clear that India gave up more acreage and even more clear that Katchatheevu island is merely an election issue raked up to rabble rouse. It is also interesting to see how the BJP sets narratives about how much they care about India but the previous rulers never did. 

And to end this blog with a report about myself — I have given up on trying to sort out my drawers and cupboards and thus know where I can find my stuff, in this not anymore new house. The time to settle and sort is gone. It is time to move into trying to resurrect life activities. The sorting will have to wait until the next spring cleaning, and I will have to stumble along, grumbling and opening several cupboards and drawers to find something. Karate self-training has been slow because of the flu, but writing practice and thinking about the karate stories is picking up, as is the other volunteer work I do. I’m sketching a lot more but reading has disappeared, so this week the focus is on catching up with reading. The hermit-ing mood continues but it is a busy week with groups and appointments, so I have to venture out into the city a lot.