I have a deep dislike for people who make a career out of disparaging India, its achievements, its heritage, culture, and history. Especially when those people are Indians. It makes you wonder just what is wrong with these people that they hate their own country so deeply. Just how much poison is there that is running in place of blood in their bodies that they make a career out of running down your own country in front of the whole world (it would be equally reprehensible to do it in private also).
Praful Bidwai (Wikipedia), by all indications and his protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, seems to be one of those people. Now there are few things more distasteful than actually sitting down and reading his columns, but I actually did that, and here is a sampling of his writings. They go beyond, far beyond the limits of what could be considered as taking a contrarian view, of providing healthy criticism, that is so important in a democracy. His focus is obsessively on those things that can be used to run down India, its achievements, belittle its achievers, be they in the sphere of IT or other spheres of life.
--> Praful Bidwai (Wikipedia), by all indications and his protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, seems to be one of those people. Now there are few things more distasteful than actually sitting down and reading his columns, but I actually did that, and here is a sampling of his writings. They go beyond, far beyond the limits of what could be considered as taking a contrarian view, of providing healthy criticism, that is so important in a democracy. His focus is obsessively on those things that can be used to run down India, its achievements, belittle its achievers, be they in the sphere of IT or other spheres of life.
- He claims that the BJP was not a national party because it won less than a third of the seats in Parliament. Nowhere is he willing to accord the same status to the Congress, which also won less than a third of the seats in parliament in the 2004 general elections.
- At the drop of a hat he labels the Shiv Sena as a fascist party. While I do not have too many problems with that labelling as I think the Shiv Sena is a ridiculous party of basically chauvinist good-for-nothings, what I would love to see this champion of India to the Muslim League a fascist party. Or such bigots as Banatwalla as traitors. Not a chance.
- When historical , literary, and basic archaelogical evidence pointed out to the existence of a temple under the Babri Masjid, the likes of Praful Bidwai were quick to whitewash such evidence as fabrications of a lunatic right-wing. When surveys ordered by the Supreme Court turned up conclusive evidence of the existence of a temple where the Babri Masjid had existed, he labelled the exercise as 'voodoo archaelogy'. Talk about name calling out of spite. Classic communist propoganda: when you can't fight facts, malign the person and everyone who associates with the person or the facts. Actually, Goebbels (link to Wikipedia) perfected the art of propaganda, and the communists in India seemingly take him to be their idol.
- It is a well known and documented fact that West Bengal is a state that encourages and witnesses huge illegal immigration from Bangaldesh. Most of the times it is with the active connivance and even participation of the communist parties' rank and file cardre. This has serious implications for the national security of India. I would love to hear Bidwai condemn the Left government in West Bengal (after all, haven't they been ruling the state for decades?) in much the same words he condemned the Maharashtra government when it tried to deport a few dozen illegal Bangladeshis from its state.
- He had a ton of hatred for the BJP and Hindutva and the Gujarat riots. The Gujarat riots were shameful on two counts: the fact that a crime of such horrific proportions as the burning of innocent women and children at Godhra could happen, and the fact that the riots that broke out after that. Interesting... Did he have anything similar to say when Hindus were hacked to death in Kerala in a calculated move by some people to instigate communal riots in the state? Or when the Congress party and its beloved leader, Rajiv Gandhi, oversaw the systematic murder of thousands of Sikhs in the country? Or the fact that every politician associated with that act of inhumanity got rewarded by ministerial posts in the Congress government for years to come? Does he even bother to remember the now infamous phrase that went something like 'when a tree falls...'?
- When Bidwai talks about the 'detoxification' of the educational institutions, does he care to comment on the venality and corruption of communist historians like Irfan Habib (who acted as the PhD guide for a student who copied, word for word, the work of another historian and passed it on as his own), Romila Thapar (who can't read a word of Sanskrit yet acts as an expert on ancient Indian history), Panicker (who took lakhs and lakhs of money for research that he never conducted or submitted to the government), and more. All of these historians have over decades, implanted them inside all government supported educational and cultural institutions, propped each other up to create a clique, took money from the government for research they never conducted, outputted work of egregious quality, and yet trumpet themselves as 'historians'.
- It speaks immensely of Bidwai's abilities or lack of them in judging character that he praised Natwar Singh as a man with strong non-aligned perspectives. Hmm.. the only thing he was non-aligned was on where he took money from. Remember the oil for money scam where he proclaimed indgnantly that he N-E-V-E-R took money? Maybe Bidwai and his ilk's motto seems to be, 'theives of the world unite!'
- He stated that Arafat had 'never been an obstacle to peace, rather a precondition for it'. Hmm... does anyone remember that when Israelis offered the Palestinians 94% of the land that they had demanded and compensation for the rest, Arafat had rejected it with enough venom and idiocy to rival Bidwai himself. And that almost every commentator the world over had started stating that Arafat had become the biggest towards peace in the region. Not to mention that Arafat was also accused of embezzling funds that his organization received as donations towards the 'Intifada', and Arafat's personal fortune was estimated at hundreds of millions of dollars. So much for Bidwai's acuity of perception.
- Bidwai's manic delusions reach epic proportions when he claims that the the Left has made 'historic contributions to building institutions and values that even the liberals cherish...'. Hmm... venality, corruption, fascination with everything un-Indian, collaboration with the British against the Congress during the freedom movement, calling Subhash Chandra Bose as the 'running dog of the imperialists', calling Mahatma Gandhi as the 'worst force in Indian politics today', taking money from the Soviets during the socialist era... Yes, these are historical contributions, but not quite the same kind as Bidwai would like to remember them as.
© 2006, Abhinav Agarwal. All rights reserved. Reposted to this blog, Oct 2011.
